T A r» a x tv- . 




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this book is the price at which 
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to the bookseller precludes 
him from allowing any dis- 
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Iff 



JAPANESE PLAYS 
AND PLAYFELLOWS 



JAPANESE PLAYS 
AND PLAYFELLOWS 



BY 

OSMAN EDWARDS 



WITH TWELVE COLOURED PLATES BY 
JAPANESE ARTISTS 



JOHN LANE 

251 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 

1901 



i 



TO 
YAKUMO KOIZUMI 

' AND 

LAFCADIO HEARN 

POET AND FRIEND 

WITH 

ADMIRING GRATITUDE 



PREFACE 

/ do not pretend to compete in the crowded field of 
Japanese sociology with those who have lived more 
than six months or less than six weeks in the country. 
My own stay was limited to half a year. I had, of 
course, studied the langtiage with native teachers and 
devoured the records of foreign travellers. I concluded 
that theatrical matters had been less fully described 
than any other: to them, accordingly, I devoted most 
attention. But there were other themes on which I 
had been insufficiently informed. Impersonal essays 
are, therefore, supplemented by personal reminiscences, 
for which I claim indulgence. If the first now seem to 
me too short, the second may seem to others too long. 
Yet I have tried only to select incidents and character- 
istics which differ strikingly froin Western ways. 

Austere critics will assuredly resent the excess of 
incense btcrned in these pages in honour of the musume. 
But, whether she and they like it or not, she continues 
to summarise in her dainty little person much of her 
country's magic : its picturesqueness, its kindness, its 
politeness. On certain syjnptoms of anti-foreign feeling 
I have dwelt at some length, because the obvious witchery 
of Japan so often results in the suppression of unpleasant 



viii PREFACE 

testimony by those whose own souvenirs are pleasantness 
itself. There is certainly no reason why the Japanese 
should exhibit more altruism to other nations than is ex- 
hibited in the reverse case. The apprehensions expressed 
by such an admirer of the race as Mr. A. B. Mitford, 
in a recent letter to the Times as to the expediency of 
giving them too free a hand in the solution of the Chinese 
problem, however unwelcome to advocates of an Anglo- 
Japanese alliance, deserve to be well weighed. Neither 
pro Japanese tourist nor anti-Japanese resident can re- 
fuse admiration to the courage and cleverness of those 
Happy Islanders, whose foreign policy is better left to 
impartial pens for judgment. A partial spectator, I 
can only render appreciative thanks for what I have 
seen and loved. 

I desire to acknowledge indebtedness to Mr. B. H. 
Chamberlain and Mr. G. W. Aston for much infor- 
mation as to lore and literature ; to the anonymous 
author of a pamphlet entitled " Notes on the History 
of the Yoshiwara of Yedo " ; to Mr. Fenollosa, Mr. 
Fukuchi, Mr. Fukai, Mr. K. Hirata, and Mr. Isoh 
Yamagata for opportunities and courtesies ; to the 
editors of the Hansei Zasshi, The Sketch, and The 
Studio for permission to make use of material con- 
tributed to their columns. 

WESTENDE-LES-BA INS. 



CONTENTS 



I. Behind the Scenes 

(Note to foregoing) Cassandra Justified 

II. Religious Plays .... 

III. Popular Plays .... 

IV. Geisha and Cherry-Blossom . 

V. Vulgar Songs .... 
VI. Taking the Waters 
VII. Playing with Fire 
VIII. Afternoon Calls . 
IX. The Scarlet Lady 

Index ...... 



3 
32 

39 
61 

101 

121 

147 
209 

237 
275 
303 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Benkei at Sea ....... Frontispiece 

Page 

Shinto Temple at Miyajima 14 

Shunkwan in Exile 46 

Kintaro fights the Earth- Spider 56 

Portrait of Mdme. Sada Yacco 66 

Portrait of Mr. Kawakami 66 

Mr. Danjuro as the Lady-in-waiting of Kasnga ... 66 

Mr. Danjuro as Jiraiya 66 

The Heroine of a Problem-play 96 

Jealousy exorcised from Aoi-no-V ye (No) .... 142 

Personators of Jizo (Kiogen) 162 

Dancers at the Feast of Lanterns 180 

Kmtaikyd Bridge 198 

The Lion-Dance on New Year's Day 248 

A Professional Story-teller 260 

The Taiyu waves her Sake-cup 300 



V' 



BEHIND THE SCENES 



BEHIND THE SCENES 

A foreign country for most travellers is very like a 
theatre. They arrive in holiday mood, resolving to 
be pleased, since otherwise their judgment in choosing 
that country rather than another, their faculty of 
appreciating what so many have proclaimed delect- 
able, might seem at fault. Should their choice have 
fallen on Japan, be sure that eulogistic notices from 
the pens of Sir Edwin Arnold and M. Pierre Loti 
have prepared them to enjoy the daintiest of come- 
diettas. They reach the enchanted shore. They 
pass swiftly from one aspect of fairyland to another. 
Nothing happens to shake their preconceived convic- 
tion that in the Land of the Rising Sun Nature began 
and Art completed a yellow paradise. They do not 
heed the jeremiads of resident aliens, nor the bitter 
cry of outcast professors, who gather thorns where 
the tourist is dazzled by cherry-blossom. The pic- 
turesque unreality of common things abets illusion. 
Surely these dolls' houses of wood and paper, these 
canopies of rosy bloom and curtains of purple wistaria, 
the gigantic cryptomeria, the tentacular pines, the 
azure inland sea and snow-streaked Fuji itself — surely 
all these compose a superb tnise en scene for poetic 



4 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

comedy! And when "the crowd" enters, a smiling 
crowd of straw-sandalled rickshaw-runners, of kneeling" 
tea-house girls, and shaven babies, arrayed like 
bright-winged butterflies, churlish indeed were the 
spectator who should refuse to smile back and cheer 
with the best. Then consider the privileges which he 
may enjoy in that admirably arranged theatre. Were 
he in his own country, the footlights divide him for a 
few hours at most from actors whose privacy, however 
coveted, he may seldom hope to invade. But on 
Japanese soil he may" often obtain, by fee or favour, 
like the stage-struck noble of Moliere's and Shake- 
speare's time, familiar acquaintance with performance 
and performers. The latter are, on the stage, his 
puppets ; off the stage, his friends. Indeed, he con- 
founds the two, and ends by treating them with 
affectionate condescension. This attitude, which he 
half-involuntarily assumes from an ever-present con- 
sciousness of superior civilisation (as he considers it), 
deceives only himself. The polite but thoughtful 
patriot, perceiving that his temples are regarded as 
bric-a-brac, his race as a race of ingenious marionettes, 
protests in vain against the unwelcome flattery of 
surprised admirers. " To this kind of people," 
wrote Mr. Fukai, one of the ablest journalists in 
Tokyo, " our country is simply a play-ground for 
globe-trotters, our people a band of cheerful, merry 
playfellows. Painstaking inquiries are made about 
Japanese curios and objects of art — sometimes im- 
portant, no doubt, but sometimes ridiculously trivial 
— while the investigation of such subjects as the 
ethical life, the social and political institutions, are 
far too much neglected. The history of the nation is 
ignored, and our recent progress is supposed to be 



BEHIND THE SCENES 5 

wholly owing to a miraculous touch of Western 
civilisation." But who is to remedy this unfort inate 
susceptibility on the part of foreigners ? The foreign 
employ^ has his work to do — diplomatic, professional, 
or commercial ; the native is in no particular hurry to 
court the esteem of outsiders, being quite contented 
with his own high estimate of himself. Must it always 
be an officer " on short leave," or a journalist in a 
hurry, who undertakes to record superficial impres- 
sions of a passing spectacle ? At least, it is no use 
reporting from the stalls what the casual playgoer 
imagines he has seen, unless his report be confirmed 
and controlled by those who move in the mysterious 
world "behind the scenes," where the drama of 
popular existence is more adequately observed and 
to a great extent directed. Happily, the judicious 
inquirer has only to choose between competent guides, 
whose eyes are no longer confused by the glimmer of 
dancing lanterns. Let us pass behind the scenes, and 
discover, if we can, what sort of piece is being re- 
hearsed — what mode of action the performers affect. 
If we lose some illusions, we may gain a profitable 
glimpse of decorously veiled truths. 

The foreign resident is rarely cast for an important 
part, never for a permanent one. It is notorious that 
he lacks aesthetic charm. His wife and children, his 
club and counting-house, his racecourse and cricket- 
field, are standing tokens of unassimilative exile. In 
England he would be a good citizen and an excellent 
fellow, sure of his seat on the School Board or County 
Council, if not in Parliament, supposing that his am- 
bitions included that of service to the community. 
But in Kobe or Yokohama he lives as isolated from 
the fascinating " native-born " as any Jew in a 



JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

mediaeval ghetto. And he does not feel the spell 
which takes the bookmaker captive. It will not do to 
dismiss him as a Philistine, a coarse barbarian, whose 
only aim is to exploit the country for his own benefit, 
since, on closer acquaintance, you find him, more 
often than not, cultured, kindly, and just. What, then, 
can be the cause of his extraordinary antipathy to the 
land, ideally perfect as it appears to us, in which his 
lines are cast ? For every blessing you pronounce 
he replies with a malediction, and, since his life behind 
the scenes is at least nearer actuality than your own, 
you borrow his eyes, with which the better to contem- 
plate a Japanese Janus, whose smiling visage fills you 
with delight, though at him is levelled a forbidding 
frown. 

The root of his discomfort and your enchantment is 
a profoundly narrow patriotism. Viewed from with- 
out, this brave and alert nation, courteous to strangers 
and glad to excite admiration, retaining so much that 
is picturesque and unique, yet capable of appropriating 
the external panoply of Western civilisation, might 
seem more companionable than any other ; viewed 
from within, it is evidently a close corporation, in- 
tolerant of rivalry, diligent to protect itself, and deter- 
mined to restrict at all costs " Japan to the Japanese." 
It is futile to blame this trait, which springs inevitably 
from the forced seclusion of two centuries, during 
which period the barbarian was rigorously excluded 
until he obtained readmission at the cannons mouth. 
Nor is such hostile feeling confined to the ignorant. 
On the contrary, the farther you go from the great 
centres, where the mixture of races might be expected 
to produce a better mutual understanding, the more 
amiable is your reception. The mercantile classes 



BEHIND THE SCENES 7 

dread and dislike the invading trader, while imitating 
his methods, so far as they can grasp them, with the 
intention of ousting him as much as possible from 
their markets. Even the intellectual classes, quick to 
appreciate the value of Western science, arms, and 
government, are none the nearer spiritually through 
their acquisition. Mr. Lafcadio Hearn, whose pas- 
sionate devotion to his adopted country has inspired 
many paeans of tender praise, yet writes : " Between 
the most elevated class of thoroughly modernised 
Japanese and the Western thinker anything akin to 
intellectual sympathy is non-existent : it is replaced 
on the native side by a cold and faultless politeness. 
Finally, a Tokyo critic, whose language is as vigorous 
as his disillusion is genuine, complains thus bitterly 
in The Orient (April 1899) of "The Rest of the 
World": 

" From first to last our foreign records have shown 
almost insatiable greed on the part of our treaty-allies. 
We have, it is true, asked for no favours ; and it is 
equally certain that we hav& not received any. There 
never has been any real feeling of fraternal amity 
between us and our allies ; and this not because we 
were not willing, indeed eager, to take the initiative, 
but because our treaty-allies have held superciliously 
aloof and grudged us an entrance into the comity of 
nations. All things considered, we do not find the 
debt of gratitude we owe to foreign lands beyond 
power of bearing. Civilisation ? We had that before 
ever Commodore Perry came to Uraga and Mississippi 
Bay. Schools ? Well, text-books are to be bought 
in the open market, and our students have always 
paid their way at Western universities. Railways ? 
Yes, but look at the absurd price we had to pay for 



8 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

the first line between Tokyo and Yokohama ! And 
so on with the whole list. We have paid the highest 
market price for our experience, with a thumping big 
commission for the privilege of buying it even at that 
rate. Yes, we have profited, but largely lost our own 
self-respect in the profiting." 

Innocently unaware of storms in the beautiful 
Satsuma tea-pot, the globe-trotter goes his way, play- 
ing and paying to the satisfaction of all. But the 
business man, whose presence is an affront and not a 
compliment, has to bear the brunt of them. The diffi- 
culties which beset his calling are not to be paralleled 
elsewhere. There was a time when the native mer- 
chant would try to intimidate his rival into concluding 
a bargain by employing soshi, importunate bravoes, to 
lay siege at all hours to the private and official door of 
their victim, until he capitulated or demanded police 
protection. But this somewhat naif procedure did 
not command general approval. More easy and more 
usual is the device of ordering goods and refusing to 
take delivery except at a much reduced rate. The 
perpetually quoted case of Cornes v. Kimura (Yoko- 
hama, 1894), which the reader will find described at 
length in Mr. Chamberlain's " Things Japanese " 
(under the heading " Trade "), is more eloquent than 
pages of second-hand rhetoric. Briefly, the British 
importer, in spite of a verdict given in his favour by a 
Japanese judge, was compelled to retain some of the 
ordered goods, at a loss of 2500 yen, on pain of being 
boycotted by the Yarn Traders' Guild. If this case 
stood alone, one would be loath to revive recollection 
of it, but there remains so many a slip between the 
signing of similar contracts and their fulfilments, that 
the warehouses at the treaty-ports are never without 



BEHIND THE SCENES 9 

incriminating bales, which lower Japanese credit and 
testify to the slow growth of commercial honesty. To 
eliminate the foreign importer altogether is, of course, 
better than to boycott him, and this, with Government 
aid, is gradually being accomplished. First, a law was 
passed that Government contracts for plant and 
material were to be given only to Japanese subjects. 
Then, when it was found that a foreign firm would 
try to evade this by employing a Japanese man of 
straw, an enactment was issued for the re-inspec- 
tion of all plant on arrival in Japan. Mr. Stafford 
Ransome, in an article contributed to The Engineer 
on the subject of this official re-inspection, quotes the 
case of 16,000 tons of cast-iron pipes supplied by one 
Belgian and two British firms for the Tokyo water- 
works. Of the 10,000 tons of Belgian pipes only 
2700 were accepted, and of the English 4000 out of 
6000 tons. Yet in his opinion the rejected pipes 
were perfectly good for the purpose. That experi- 
ence will correct short-sighted dishonesty, that the 
native merchant will gradually master the principles of 
international trade and become as respected as he was 
in feudal days despised, nobody doubts ; and if for 
the moment the stranger within his gates must suffer, 
the gates are not yet stripped of all their gold. 
Already the Chambers of Commerce have realised 
that capital is cosmopolitan, and that excess of 
chauvinism spells bankruptcy for local enterprise. 
So long as the laws forbid the foreigner to own land, 
to hold shares in native companies or to assist in 
their management, he is naturally shy of responding 
to invitations to invest. But at first such invitations 
were not frequent. Ten years ago the craze for joint- 
stock companies, though widespread, was yet hedged 



io JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

in by patriotic precaution. The promoters had no 
desire to share with outsiders the golden fruit which 
seemed to beckon from speculative boughs. More- 
over, the Government, always paternal from sentiment 
and tradition, would often pledge its support in liberal 
subsidies. The defeat of China redoubled the victor's 
confidence in his capacity to develop his own posses- 
sions with his own resources. But events have not 
kept pace with his hopes. The greater portion of the 
indemnity was diverted, after all, into British pockets 
in return for unproductive ironclads : prices went up, 
dividends went down ; the shining fruit was turned 
to ashes through inexpert gardening, for the art of 
industrial horticulture is not to be learned in a day, 
especially by amateurs, who sometimes drew an 
erratic line between private and public consumption 
of the crop. Whatever the causes, those very 
Chambers of Commerce, which had strongly opposed 
the introduction of foreign capital, passed in 1898-99 
one resolution after another to the effect that aliens be 
permitted and solicited to contribute where the funds 
of indigenous subscribers required to be supplemented. 
It does not, however, seem probable that foreign 
investors will be in any hurry to unloose their purse- 
strings, unless and until the over-cautious patriot can 
be persuaded to modify the laws in such a way as will 
give his coadjutor the right to share in the manage- 
ment and responsibility of any scheme towards the 
success of which his money may be largely, even pre- 
ponderantly, instrumental. 

It must not be supposed that apprehension and 
mistrust are monopolised by one party to this sub- 
terranean war. For five years it has been impossible 
to open an English journal published in the treaty- 



BEHIND THE SCENES 



ii 



ports without finding in it some dismal prophecy of 
the time (it began on June 18, 1899) when the 
treaties concluded by Lord Rosebery's Government 
should be put into operation, when the walls of the 
ghetto should be razed, when the British lion and 
the Japanese lamb must lie down together in unity. 
The right to travel in the interior without passports, 
and to reside in any district whatsoever without special 
permission, are the only advantages conferred by the 
treaties on resident aliens — advantages which he 
would enjoy as a matter of course in any civilised 
country. The disadvantages, of which he fears the 
inconvenience, to use no stronger term, are numerous. 
Extra-territoriality being abolished, he becomes sub- 
ject to Japanese law, which is incompletely codified 
and must be administered by men whose patriotic 
bias and sense of justice may be subjected at times to 
a severe strain. Still, the right to exercise jurisdiction 
on all within her borders cannot be refused, without 
insult, to a civilised Power. The right to impose 
duty on imports (hitherto limited to five per cent.) up 
to thirty or forty per cent, is not only undeniable, but 
absolutely desirable in the interests of Japanese trade. 
It is suggested, however, that such high duties might 
be levied on objects which are indispensable to* 
foreigners and of little utility to natives, as to form a 
lever for the gradual ejection of aliens. There is no 
guarantee that the freedom of the Press and the free- 
dom of public meeting will be exempt from those 
restrictions, which are daily and legally imposed on 
the Japanese themselves. The coasting trade, the right 
of doctors and lawyers to practise without a Japanese 
diploma, the conditions of holding and selling leases — 
on these most vital points the utmost uncertainty exists. 



12 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

No wonder that Mr. B. H. Chamberlain asked, 
€i Could any one imagine such terms having ever been 
agreed to except as the result of a disastrous war ? " 

Happily, between the discontented British and the 
ultra-patriotic Japanese lies a barrier of prudent states- 
manship, which has proved itself equal to solving 
harder problems than any with which the Western 
world is confronted. No other Eastern nation has 
known how to transform its polity in accordance with 
Occidental ideas without provoking internal disruption 
or external conquest. It is not yet realised that the 
credit of the achievement is due to a very small band 
of men — to the Marquess I to and his associates on 
the one hand and the foreign instructors on the 
other, whose names are too soon forgotten, while 
their works live after them. Though all their com- 
patriots now reap in advancing prestige and pros- 
perity the benefits of the work performed by the 
^'Clan Statesmen," it must not be forgotten that 
much of that work was accomplished in the face of 
^very obstacle which prejudice and short-sightedness 
-could interpose. Popular dissatisfaction was adroitly 
diverted by declaring war on China at the moment when 
factious opposition was bringing discredit on the four- 
years-old parliamentary Government, and Ministers 
were strong enough to hold an indignant nation in 
hand when the fruits of war were so unscrupulously 
torn from their grasp by Muscovite intrigue. Indi- 
cations are not wanting that the spirit of tactful sense 
which has steered Japan through so many tempests 
is competent to allay those prognosticated by the 
Cassandras of Kobe and Yokohama. Those jour- 
nalistic beldames, who predicted sickness and death 
for the European inmate of a Japanese prison unless 



BEHIND THE SCENES 13 

he should be granted a special diet and a particular 
rdgime, have been already conciliated by the con- 
struction of an expensive gaol, which it is hoped they 
will never be called upon to occupy. This building, 
situated at Sugamo, covers an area of about 28,000 
square yards. It is provided with tables and chairs, 
and the cells will be lighted with electricity. Thus 
the grievance is redressed before it can even occur ; 
murder is averted ; ab uno disce omnes. 

Before dismissing from consideration the prevalent 
hostility to foreign residents, more noticeable in the 
ports than elsewhere, and most pronounced in relation 
to mercantile rivals, a word should be said as to its 
effects on mission work. Between 1878 and 1888 
Christianity appeared to be carrying all before it. 
The land was honeycombed with evangelists of every 
sect, from the resplendent deacons of the Orthodox 
Russian cathedral, which so insolently dominates the 
capital from the summit of Suruga-dai, to the dingy 
crowd of Methodists, Baptists, Unitarians, Univer- 
salists, and others, none of whom were without a 
hopeful following of more or less sincere converts. In 
fact, so fashionable did the once-persecuted faith 
become that Mr. Fukuzawa, " the Jowett of Japan," 
the intellectual father of her most progressive pioneers, 
advocated for a time that it should be adopted as 
the national religion, by no means on account of its 
intrinsic merits, but rather as a certificate of spiritual 
respectability and a passport to more intimate relation- 
ship with the Powers which call themselves Christian. 
This success is easily explained. Not only were 
many of the missionaries men of high principle and 
attractive personality, but they had the wisdom to 
minimise doctrinal differences and the opportunity of 



i 4 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

conferring no small material benefit on their disciples 
by teaching them the English tongue. The com- 
mercial value of an English education stood high, and 
the army of native Christians had a better chance than 
most of obtaining posts in governmental or other 
offices. I may mention in passing that the first pro- 
fessed Christian to hold ministerial rank was the 
Minister of Education in the short-lived Okuma- 
Itagaki Government of 1898. 

Of course, I would not insinuate that cases of 
genuine conversion were not numerous and productive 
of moral regeneration, or that the creed of Christen- 
dom has failed to strike root among the simple and 
warm-hearted peasantry. But it is certain that among 
the educated classes it is now viewed with rationalistic 
indifference. 

Mr. G. W. Aston, towards the close of his " His- 
tory of Japanese Literature," makes a very significant 
admission : 

"The process of absorbing new ideas, which has 
mainly occupied the Japanese nation during the last 
thirty years, is incomplete in one very important par- 
ticular. Although much in European thought which 
is inseparable from Christianity has been freely 
adopted by Japan, the Christian religion itself has 
made comparatively little progress. The writings of 
the Kamakura and two subsequent periods are pene- 
trated with Buddhism, and those of the Yedo age 
with moral and religious ideas derived from China. 
Christianity has still to put its stamp on the literature 
of the Tokyo period." 

Whether this apathy towards Christian teaching 
should be attributed, as some aver, to an incapacity 
for abstract speculation, or, as others assert, to the 




Shinto Temple at Miyajima, 



BEHIND THE SCENES 15 

revolution which its adoption would entail in the 
position of women, need not be discussed at present. 
Let the following facts speak for themselves. The 
latest available statistics show that the number of 
converts is decreasing. Even within the ranks of 
Japanese Christianity is a strongly marked tendency 
to replace foreign by native teachers, and to nationalise 
that religion by robbing it of many dogmas which are 
elsewhere regarded as essential. The case of the 
Doshisha, which has been of late years a burning 
question among Japanese and American Christians, 
is one with which all who ' take an interest in mission 
work should certainly be well acquainted, for it fur- 
nishes a striking illustration of the appropriative and, 
to our ideas, somewhat unscrupulous proclivities of 
Nipponean patriots. The Doshisha is a Christian 
university founded at Kyoto in 1875 under the 
auspices of the American Board Mission. So liberal 
were the contributions of foreign believers to this 
very flourishing institution, that at last it came to 
include, besides a special theological department, a 
girls' school, a science school, a hospital, and a nurses' 
training school. Needless to say, the Presbyterian 
donors inserted a clause in the constitution to the 
effect that their form of faith should be perpetually 
and obligatorily taught. Religious schools, however, 
cannot claim the same privileges as civil schools from 
the Home Department, which, on the plea of neu- 
trality, only grants to undenominational ones special 
concessions with regard to military conscription. 
Realising that this disability acted unfavourably on 
the number of pupils and retarded the expansion of 
their work, the governing body of the Doshisha pro- 
ceeded to increase the number of native subscribers, 



1 6 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

and with their connivance to dechristianise the college, 
in order to escape the disadvantage already mentioned. 
That is, the Christian instruction was made optional 
instead of obligatory, but the buildings and appliances, 
bought with American money, were of course retained. 
The Board, representing the original subscribers, pro- 
tested against what they did not hesitate to charac- 
terise as a flagrant breach of faith : the governing 
body pleaded expediency, and were prepared to re- 
define Christianity in accordance with their own con- 
ceptions of an undeniably vague term. There the 
matter rests. It might seem unfair to lay stress on 
this matter, were it not that this action of the Doshisha 
authorities is typical of the attitude of native educa- 
tionalists at the present time to foreign teaching : it 
forms, in fact, part of the patriotic movement, which I 
desire to indicate without praise or blame, more espe- 
cially as that movement is so little known outside 
Japan. Of course, there has been for years a very 
natural and proper tendency to replace foreign by 
native officials as soon as the latter seemed capable 
of discharging the functions primarily entrusted to the 
former. But this is very different from denying to 
foreigners the right of founding schools at their own 
risk — a right which they would enjoy as a matter of 
course in any but reactionary States. Such, how- 
ever, is the policy urged on the Government by the 
Higher Educational Council (composed of professors 
in the chief schools and colleges), which on April 17, 
1899, passed the following resolution : 

" Foreigners who are not conversant with Japanese 
shall not be allowed to become teachers in other courses 
than those of foreign languages or special courses in 
special schools and of schools exclusively intended for 



BEHIND THE SCENES 17 

foreigners. Foreigners who are licensed as teachers in 
the above-mentioned capacities shall not be allowed to 
found schools other than those exclusively intended for 
foreigners!' 

As the founder of a school should legally be a 
licensed teacher, the foregoing clauses practically pro- 
hibit foreigners from establishing schools for Japanese. 
Besides, there is a clause prohibiting religious educa- 
tion and ceremonies in privileged schools. In other 
words, the nationalists wish education to be not only 
in their own hands, but also entirely secular ; and those 
who desire to introduce from abroad theological tenets 
may no longer do so, if the Government should follow 
this advice, except from the pulpit or as private in- 
dividuals. Whether such a restriction be or be not in 
violation of existing treaties with foreign Powers, I 
cannot say. 

Sufficient proof has perhaps been already adduced 
of anti-foreign feeling to convince an impartial reader 
that an Anglo-Saxon exile has some reason for feeling 
ill at ease in the tourists' paradise. It might be added, 
however, that even the victim of patriotic manoeuvres 
is hardly ever exposed to personal malevolence. The 
politest nation in the world would certainly not be 
guilty of any overt discourtesy. The accident of 
foreign birth may place you outside the pale of those 
secure and intimate relations which you might form 
with colleagues in other lands (the divergence of social 
and domestic habits by itself almost necessitates this), 
but, if the collision of financial interests should result 
in your ejection from a post of vantage, you cannot 
justly blame an individual, only those centripetal forces 
that give solidarity and cohesion to a race which 
remains, the more it changes, the more indissolubly 

B 



1 8 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

the same. And though the patriot might think, he 
would never say to your face, " L'etranger, voila 
l'ennemi." On the contrary, if he had not the racial 
interest to consider, if he were not born in a maze of 
reciprocal duties which to us are inconceivable, so 
charming is his natural disposition that I am not a 
all sure that he would not, now and then, sacrifice 
himself to oblige an alien ! 

I have used the phrase " charming natural disposi- 
tion " deliberately, though it may seem incongruous, 
or even incompatible with dislike of strangers. What 
traveller has not felt and described this charm ? Will 
Adams in the beginning of the seventeenth century 
found " the people of this Hand good of nature, cur- 
teous aboue measure," and Sir Rutherford Alcock in 
the middle of the nineteenth reports them " as kindly 
and well-disposed people as any in the world." Has 
their nature, then, suffered any deterioration ? Has 
contact with Europeans and Americans brought mate- 
rial gain at the cost of ethical loss ? Many observers, 
both native and foreign, declare this to be the case : 
a little reflection will show that it cannot, for the 
present, be otherwise. 

" Old Japan," in the opinion of Mr. Lafcadio Hearn, 
" was quite as much in advance of the nineteenth cen- 
tury morally as she was behind materially. She had 
made morality instinctive." This verdict is not yet of 
purely historic interest ; it may be tested by all who 
care to travel beyond the radius of photographs and 
railways. In remote districts, where the innkeeper 
charges a minimum price, relying for profit on the 
generosity of his guest, whose present is acknowledged 
by the bestowal of a fan or an embroidered towel, even 
such fugitive relations rest on a benevolent rather than 



BEHIND THE SCENES 19 

a wholly commercial basis. Patriarchal manners — 
contented submission, fidelity, courtesy — yield a rich 
return of domestic happiness. The struggle for life 
and for wealth is tempered by self-sacrificing customs 
and amenities. If the apprentice be willing to work 
for no other wage than his masters approval and 
satisfaction through long probationary years, the 
master, on his side, will resign his charge into the 
hands of a younger generation before decrepitude has 
come to rob "honourable retirement" of its grace. If 
the young wife devote tier summer to unquestion- 
ing service of her husband and his parents, she has 
her reward when her sons' wives repay her with the 
same filial homage. Similar ties, imposing restraint 
on egoism and sanctified by public esteem, have had 
their full share in developing those amiable qualities 
which every observer has acknowledged. But the 
break-up of feudal society cannot fail to react on the 
manners which reflected feudal discipline. The 
Western ideals of liberty, equality, and self-assertion, 
the decay of religious belief, the necessity of fighting 
on even terms in the great competitive milde to the 
tune of "The devil take the hindmost, oh!" and, it 
must be added, the example set by the rest of the 
world, which does not practise altruism, whatever its 
representatives may preach, all these factors tend to 
harden and sharpen the modernised Japanese. 

A curious sign of the independent spirit, nourished 
on new ideas and strangely at variance with the old, is 
the organised indiscipline of schoolboys. During the 
six months which the writer spent in the country two 
flagrant cases occurred of defiance of authority, by no 
means unusual, it would appear, in scholastic experience, 
if one might judge by the comments of the local Press. 



20 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

In one case the majority of the scholars absented 
themselves for a fortnight as a protest against the 
alleged incapacity of the teacher, and maltreated a 
more docile minority who endeavoured to resume 
their lessons. In another the upper forms refused 
to recognise the authority of a headmaster appointed 
by the Government, on the ground that his talents 
and attainments fell below the standard which they 
deemed desirable in the director of their studies. In 
consequence, the unfortunate nominee of the Minister 
of Education was completely boycotted ; his class-room 
was deserted, his suggestions ignored ; and, on the 
occasion of the annual prize-giving, he was publicly 
insulted, for, whereas the whole school rose and 
remained standing as a mark of respect during the 
speeches of distinguished visitors, when their un- 
fortunate chief began his address they resumed their 
seats and engaged in loud conversation, after the 
manner of our own House of Commons when the 
suppression of an unwelcome orator is desired. The 
most surprising feature in both these instances was 
that a section of the Japanese Press, instead of 
regarding the incidents as deplorable, indeed, but as 
domestic matters, which it concerned only the govern- 
ing body to regulate, made them the subject of a long 
polemic, sided with or against the malcontents, and, in 
short, exalted the revolting schoolboys into fellow- 
citizens " rightly struggling to be free." The college 
Hampden does not shrink from his role, and is prepared 
in the interests of curiosity and " the higher education " 
to cross-examine a newly-appointed professor, insuffi- 
ciently protected by a Harvard or Oxford reputation, 
on his knowledge of Shakespeare, his theological 
beliefs, his preference for "the open door" or the 



BEHIND THE SCENES 21 

gradual partition of China. If this precocious inde- 
pendence conflict with our old-fashioned notions of 
modesty and reverence on the part of adolescence 
towards its seniors, it should make life more amusing 
for the professor, who, after all, is better off with 
inquisitive than with incurious pupils. I am confirmed 
in my supposition that the autonomous schoolboy is 
not at all abnormal by a schoolmaster of nearly ten 
years' standing, who writes : "In the Occident the 
master expels the pupil. In Japan it happens quite 
as often that the pupil expels the master. Each public 
school is an earnest, spirited little republic." One 
thing is certain. The taught are as eager to absorb 
knowledge as the teacher to impart it ; idleness is rare ; 
without extraordinary application but little progress 
can be made. For it should not be forgotten that four 
or five years must be devoted to the sole acquisition 
of a working stock of Chinese ideographs, the scholar's 
needlessly complicated alphabet, before he attacks 
Western science, law, language, or medicine, themselves 
supplementary to subjects of native growth. Demands 
so various can only be met by the most systematic 
precision, and in effect no country has more carefully 
organised popular education. To organise comes 
naturally to the Japanese, and this capacity explains 
the apparent contradiction of co-existent order and 
revolt. The revolt is always corporate, one organisa- 
tion within another. Whether the disaffected body 
consist of waiters, or workmen, or schoolboys, it has to 
be treated as a collective unit. The objects pursued 
— higher wages, more liberty, more privileges— may 
bear the impress of democratic ambition, but the spirit 
in which they are fought for is that of feudal obedience 
to a common call. 



22 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

It cannot be said that the Japanese Press has de- 
generated through contact with foreigners, since it is 
a plant, imported from abroad nearly thirty years 
ago, which has thriven and multiplied exceedingly on 
favourable soil. As might have been expected, no 
modern novelty is more popular than the newspaper 
in a land where gossip and laughter and criticism are 
as the breath of life to a sharp-witted, good-tempered 
race. More than a thousand newspapers — several 
illustrated, some wholly or partly in English — cater 
at very low prices to the public appetite. It is natural 
that the right to speak and print freely should be 
liable to abuse when first exercised. Nor could the 
wary group of reformers, whose task of nursing demo- 
cratic institutions among hereditary partisans of a 
rigid caste system was no less delicate than difficult, 
be blamed for setting legal limits to editorial indiscre- 
tion. In India and in Egypt the British authorities 
are often compelled for reasons of State to quench the 
sacred torch of incendiary invective. But as public 
opinion grows better educated, it is less liable to be 
led astray by journalistic tirades. Moreover, the 
journalist soon acquires a hold, direct or indirect, on 
the Legislature, wherever Parliament and Press be- 
come interdependent. The Press laws of Japan have, 
in consequence, lost much of their severity, and 
trie "prison-editor" (whose position corresponds to 
that of the Sitz-Redaktor in Prussia) finds his fate of 
vicarious imprisonment, when the actual editor sins, 
grow daily less onerous. It was, indeed, urged as a 
reproach by opposition sheets against the Okuma- 
Itagaki Ministry of 1898 that five or six of the 
Ministers had been at some time or other inmates 
of his Imperial Majesty's gaols; but the gravity of 



BEHIND THE SCENES 23 

the reproach is much diminished by the explanation 
that in nearly every case incarceration had been 
inflicted for unguarded liberty of expression in the 
Press or on the platform. Political offences, all the 
world over, are merely political offences. For the 
Irish Nationalist Kilmainham is more sacred than 
Westminster. Such prisoners are no more than 
naughty children, locked in a dark room by a paternal 
Government 

But, in truth, it is not the political columns which 
have most influence on the circulation of Tokyo 
journals. If the typical leading article seem to English 
taste wanting in force and directness, abounding in 
vague sonorities, that is a fault shared by European 
editors, who are bound to veil an oracle with traditional 
obscurity. This trait is, of course, intensified by the 
impersonal periphrases of the language. Where the 
director of the journal is most to blame is in allow- 
ing his organ to become the medium of worse than 
American personalities. The newspaper which enjoys 
the largest circulation among the middle and lower 
classes of the capital devotes much attention to main- 
taining the prestige of its chronique scandaleuse. The 
Prime Minister, the foreign merchant or professor, the 
Buddhist high-priest, will discover that his amours, 
embellished with corroborative detail and treated with 
more regard to artistic effect than the facts warrant, 
command the most flattering and embarrassing popu- 
larity. What would be thought of a London newspaper 
which should record so minutely the movements of a 
visiting prince as to chronicle the names of profes- 
sional beauties visited by him, as well as the price paid 
for their transitory favours ? The aggrieved hero or 
villain has no doubt legal remedy, should he choose 



24 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

to prosecute the offending reporter; but the remedy 
would be worse than the disease, since not only is it 
dilatory and expensive, but the protracted advertise- 
ment would tend to circulate rather than to kill the 
slander. Besides, in the eyes of an indulgent public 
gallantry, as our French neighbours call it, excites 
more amusement then reprobation. At any rate, 
libellous paragraphs, with their inevitable accompani- 
ment of blackmail, are at present sufficiently numerous 
to detract from the high reputation deservedly enjoyed 
by more scrupulous journals such as the Nikon, the 
Nichi Nichi, and the Jiji Shimpo, The feuilleton 
flourishes. When illustrated by woodcuts, repre- 
senting a Japanese woman tied naked to a tree and 
assaulted by Russian sailors, it makes good fuel for 
chauvinistic flame; but such outrages on taste are 
rare, and in general the reader prefers adventurous 
romance, with a spice of unreality, in the vein of Jules 
Verne or the elder Dumas. 

Proximity to the continent where manners count 
for less than dollars has, in the opinion of many, made 
the present generation less polite and more mercenary 
than its predecessors. One certainly misses the 
exquisite courtesy still in vogue in outlying districts, 
when one has occasion to remark the rudeness or 
familiarity of certain classes in or near Tokyo. But 
this declining courtesy, which cannot be called general, 
is not to be attributed solely to ignorant dislike of 
strangers. As soon as the sensitive native discovers 
that ceremonious attention is apt to be mistaken for 
obsequiousness, his pride intervenes and his bearing 
becomes less affable. The example of ill-mannered 
tourists has, it is true, demoralised the service of 
certain hotels, where the visitor persists in regarding 



BEHIND THE SCENES 25 

the attendant musumd as a plaything, but the incivility 
of the rickshaw-man when his invariable attempt to 
overcharge is frustrated rests on no other basis than 
the presumption, not confined to one country, that 
since the traveller has arrived to spend money, he 
should be encouraged to spend it as freely as possible. 
Sometimes, too, an amusing reciprocal patronage is to 
be observed. If the tourist be inclined to regard the 
peasant as a living toy invented for his diversion, the 
peasant not infrequently will see in the tourist a help- 
less, rather childish creature, pleased by infantile things 
and unable to speak a word of Japanese. He therefore 
pities, protects, and fleeces him. None but the incap- 
able rich, whom vanity or idleness compels to become 
dependent on inferiors, should dream of employing a 
professional guide. He probably is less well informed 
than u Murray " ; he seeks on every pretext to prolong 
his services ; he exacts a commission on every purchase 
made, both from his employer and the shopkeeper, for 
if the latter refuse he will conduct the customer else- 
where. Notwithstanding these peculiarities, he is 
perhaps worth his price to hurried visitors. 

How far materialism has gone in replacing dutiolatry 
by worship of the golden calf, to what extent the old 
high ideals have ceased to affect the relations of the 
Japanese to one another — such a question is difficult, 
perhaps impossible, to answer satisfactorily. Mr. 
B. H. Chamberlain declares roundly that " patriotism 
is the only ideal left," but on such a nice point it is 
better to let the native speak for himself. 

From The Orient, a monthly magazine, Buddhistic 
in sympathy and of modern tendency, is quoted the 
following unequivocal indictment : 

" Spiritually there is very undeniable decadence. 



26 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

Open ports, huge fleets of steamers, thousands of miles 
of rails, telephone and telegraph wires, a navy ranking 
at least seventh in the worlds list, a consolidated 
postal system, flourishing banks, and all else of like 
nature, are nothing more than signs of material pro- 
gress. Like our allies, we have grown worldly wise, 
and have come to view the almighty dollar with a 
feeling akin to veneration. People point, and with 
justice, to the tremendous social revolution of the 
Restoration days ; but where we have got rid of daimyo 
and shomyo, of hatamoto and samurai^ have we not 
plutocrats and bureaucrats as potent and unconscion- 
able as the most tyrannical of the one-time feudal 
barons? The outcast pariahs — the eta — no longer 
exist in law or name ; but they exist in fact. The 
operatives of the Osaka mills, the wretched human 
shambles of the prostitute quarters, the sick and suffer- 
ing poor — are these not social pariahs and even worse ? 
We miss the sternly martial virtue of the days of yore ; 
the unbending dignity of the true, the real Yamato- 
damashii (the spirit of Japanese chivalry). . . . Never 
were bribery and corruption more rife : the whole 
machinery of the State is suffering from this dry-rot ; 
and even those who are called upon to set the country 
an example have their price. Nepotism is taking the 
place of clannish interdependence. One's fortunes are 
easily made if one happens to be a 'forty-second 
cousin ' of a favourite courtesan, a popular geisha> or a 
spoiled mistress." 

" Irresponsible rhetoric," the reader may think, and 
indulged in the more freely because the writer chose 
to employ the English tongue, which is yet unknown 
to the majority of his countrymen. But these con- 
siderations do not apply to the official utterances of an 



BEHIND THE SCENES 27 

ex-Premier (Count Okuma) and his Minister of Educa- 
tion. The former, who is not chary of autobiography, 
in a speech which created some sensation confessed 
that as a young man he had been too dazzled by the 
splendour of Western civilisation to appreciate the 
seamy side of material progress, but recent experience 
of popular movements and public affairs had convinced 
him that the supreme need of all classes, if their 
prosperity were to continue, was a return to the higher 
morality of the past. Mr. Hayashi, who may be 
thought to have interpreted his duty of directing 
national education too literally, put the matter in a nut- 
shell. " Let us suppose," said he to a popular audience, 
4 'that Japan in the course of a thousand years or so 
were to become a republic. If the same Mammon- 
worship should exist then as exists now, it is certain 
that the Vanderbilt or Jay Gould of the day would be 
elected President." Few nations care to be lectured 
in this way, even by Ministers of Education. The 
result was a violent agitation, fomented in the patriotic 
Press, which demanded the resignation of one who 
could be so disloyal to his sovereign as to hint at a 
possible republic ten centuries ahead. The rash 
moralist found it expedient to resign. Assuming, how- 
ever, as one is perhaps entitled to assume, that the 
speaker had chiefly in mind the venality of politicians, 
I doubt very much either the extent or the heinousness 
of the evil denounced. Reduced to detail, the charges 
amount to this : that electors and deputies have been 
known to sell their votes and to advocate measures 
from which they have made preparations to derive 
financial benefit. Such evils are inseparable from the 
infancy of representative government, and persist in 
veiled form in its maturity. The Unionist member of 



28 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

the Salisbury-Chamberlain party who has been called 
upon to vote successive bounties or remission of taxes 
to landed proprietors and clerical tithe-payers is guilty 
of somewhat similar acts, with this trifling difference : 
that instead of rewarding his supporters with money 
from his own purse, he draws upon the State treasury. 
It would not be surprising if Japanese politicians were 
more openly corrupt than our own, for most of them 
take American politics as the nearest and most friendly 
school of democracy — a school where self-seeking is 
avowedly the first duty of a public man, and where the 
prizes fall to the cleverest manipulator or servitor of 
plutocratic trusts. But, as a matter of fact, neither 
Tammany nor Panama is yet transplanted to the banks 
of Sumida-gawa. The laws aimed at electoral bribery 
are stringent and frequently enforced. Accusations of 
corruption are invariably followed by official inquiry. 
It is evident, then, that if the offender be sometimes 
clever enough to evade discovery, at least public 
opinion is neither cynical nor depraved. A stronger 
negative argument is furnished by the fact that the 
Liberals and Progressives (as the two anti-ministerial 
parties were called until the fusion in 1898), who had 
been excluded until that year from office, though con- 
stituting on more than one occasion a majority in the 
Lower House of the Diet, did not accuse the Ministers 
who launched Japan on the sea of parliamentary 
government of either misgovernment or dishonest 
finance. Nepotism was the sum and substance of their 
complaint. The Choshi men monopolised the chief 
posts in the railway department, the Satsuma men held 
control of army and navy : in a word, the ascendency 
of the pre-revolutionary clans survived the revolution. 
But, when their own turn came in the summer of 1898 



BEHIND THE SCENES 29 

to divide the spoils of office, to which they had been 
summoned by the astuteness of Marquess I to, prompt 
to cover personal chagrin at his own defeat by advocacy 
of his opponents* claims to Imperial recognition, the 
followers of Counts Okuma and Itagaki found it impos- 
sible to reconcile the claims of contending office-seekers. 
Indeed, so bitter did the dissensions become, that the 
alliance was dissolved, and the first Ministry based on 
a majority in the Lower House disbanded before the 
Diet met. Power has since reverted to the same men, 
whose sagacity has made Japan triumph alike over 
armed foes and treaty-allies. Seeing that no more 
than eight per cent, of the population have votes, 
participation in home politics is confined to a compara- 
tively small circle ; and not to all of them, since most of 
the merchants with whom I conversed on the subject 
were content to leave their interests in the hands of 
the authorities, and expressed great resentment at the 
action of the soshi or professional agitators employed 
by politicians to cajole or threaten a constituency. It 
is inevitable at present that place and power should be 
the goal of all parties, and that politics should present 
the aspect of a scramble for office. There is no 
dividing-line between political parties, as elsewhere. 
No one desires to return to the feudal rdgime, or to 
tamper with the Constitution, or to limit the royal 
prerogative. In the face of national danger it is easy 
for all parties to unite, since nothing divides them but 
such questions as the incidence of taxation and the dis- 
tribution of posts. In the course of time, should the 
last vestige of acquiescent docility on the part of the 
toilers be swept away, the industrial sphinx will pose 
its question to the Japanese as to all other modern 
communities ; the rich will be ranged against the poor, 



30 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

the socialist against the conservative. But, as things 
are now, even the loss of diplomatic prestige occasioned 
by the triumph of Russia in Manchuria, of which the 
blame cannot justly be assigned to isolated Japan, is 
counterbalanced by the careful development of military 
and commercial resources which would seem the crown- 
ing duty of the Emperor's advisers. The increasing 
prosperity of the country is the best answer to malevo- 
lent critics, and, if the charge of spiritual decadence 
in politics is to be sustained, weightier evidence must 
be produced than the writer has been able to discover. 
Well, I have taken a bird's-eye view of the Japanese 
as they appear to the resident alien, because his 
protesting voice is generally drowned in the joyful 
ejaculations of passing travellers. I have put aside for 
the moment my own prepossessions, which were only 
strengthened by intercourse with natives of every 
class, in order that the dark side of the shield might 
not be veiled. Dishonest traders aided by tortuous 
enactments, and mistrustful teachers suspicious of 
Western propaganda, insubordinate inferiors and in- 
competent officials — all these constitute grave stum- 
bling-blocks to happiness. But it would not be fair 
to ignore the facts which promise a brighter future. 
There are many firms whose integrity is unques- 
tioned, many journalists who try to stem the current 
of national misunderstanding by sagacious counsel. 
Experience and fuller knowledge are sure to prove 
wholesome correctives. The anti-foreign bias, though 
real and formidable, is based on the fear of half-under- 
stood eventualities. Closer intercourse and wider edu- 
cation will cause wisdom to spread down from the 
rulers to the ruled, who are not yet on familiar terms 
with our conceptions of trade and government. 



BEHIND THE SCENES 31 

It is to be hoped, when the nation feels thoroughly 
at home in its new house, equipped from garret to 
cellar with the latest improvements and occupied by a 
tenant-proprietor whom no conceivable machination of 
jealous neighbours can dislodge, that even the foreign 
lodger will be permitted to exercise his calling without 
the slightest hindrance or disability. 

So much for the world behind the scenes, of which 
a glimpse has been vouchsafed to the reader. It will 
be seen that those who sustain roles in the daintiest 
of comediettas are also cast for a problem-play ; that 
they are no more exempt from envy, hatred, and 
vanity than other sensitive artists ; that their profes- 
sional dislike to alien amateurs, who add insult to 
injury by expecting the deference due to higher 
national status while competing for the pence and 
plaudits of the same public, is very human and not 
without excuse ; that, in spite of these infirmities, they 
may be industrious bread-winners and excellent per- 
formers. After all, the proper place for sightseers is 
the front of the house. Let us go there, and forget 
the intrigues of the green-room, in which we have 
happily no concern. We have come many miles to 
witness the play ; let us give it undivided attention. 



NOTE TO " BEHIND THE SCENES." CASSANDRA 
JUSTIFIED? 

Though time and space had so muffled the protesting shrieks of 
Cassandra that I could no longer hear her whirling prophecies or 
follow her sorry fortunes from day to day in the chivalrous Press 
of the treaty-ports, I never lost interest or sympathy in her loudly 
predicted future. I would picture her borne with streaming eyes and 
hair from her extra-territorial temple ; I would ask myself whether 
she had yet been borne off into bondage unspeakable by some 
Japanese Agamemnon. News travels slowly, and I was forced to 
content myself with the most meagre reports, when one day came a 
letter with the Yokohama postmark, in which the writer took excep- 
tion to some statements made by me in a lecture to the Playgoers' 
Club on the subject of Japanese theatres, and improved the occasion 
by despatching much irrelevant information on the subject of Japanese 
iniquity. I owe a heavy debt of gratitude to Mr. F. Schroeder, the 
editor and proprietor of The Eastern World, for those letters and 
pamphlets. They assure me of the welcome fact that Cassandra is 
alive and free, and protesting more loudly than ever. I gladly give 
publicity to the incidents and speculations recorded in them, for, 
while they seem to justify honest apprehension on the part of 
Cassandra's friends, they also contain indications that Agamemnon 
is by no means so subject to Thersites as the foes of Far Eastern 
democracy would have us believe. 

The question which raises most speculation, on account of the un- 
certainty of the law to be applied, is also the most important. It 
concerns leasehold. Hitherto foreigners had supposed themselves 
to hold land under a perpetual lease on payment of a lump sum to 
the vendor and of annual ground-rent to the Government. But, 
when a recent application was made to the local court in Yokohama 
for the registration of the transfer of property so held from one 
British subject to another, the Court replied that it had no power to 
register such a transfer, offering instead to describe the property as 
a perpetual superficies. The offer was refused and the point sub- 
mitted to the British Minister. If it should be decided that the 
foreign owner is no more than a superficiary, the ground at a distance 
of more than thirty feet below the surface tacitly reverts to the 
Government, which of course would have the right to sell it for 



BEHIND THE SCENES 33 

mining purposes, for the construction of tunnels or reservoirs or what 
not, provided that the surface were neither entered nor broken. A 
change so radical in the conditions of holding land, which the pur- 
chaser may thus have acquired under a misapprehension, is serious 
enough, but more serious still will be its effect on future purchasers. 
By the newly codified law authorisation is refused to leases of longer 
than twenty years' duration. What foreign firm, desirous of a per- 
manent footing on Japanese soil, would erect buildings and establish 
itself on land liable to be resumed by the owner at the end of so 
short a period ? How easy for native traders under such circum- 
stances to strangle or arrest the business of alien competitors ! 
Should a score of years demonstrate the growth of too successful 
rivalry, they have merely to bririg such pressure to bear on the lessor 
as would prevent renewal of the lease. 

The Tamba Maru case, which originated in a somewhat ignoble 
squabble between the English third officer and the Japanese quarter- 
master of a Nippon Yusen Kwaisha steamer, assumes quite Homeric 
proportions in the pages of an Eastern World brochure. It certainly 
affords food for reflection on the methods of Oriental justice when 
racial prejudice intervenes, but the sequel shows that in Japan at any 
rate an appeal lies from prejudiced judges and partial witnesses to 
substantial wisdom and common-sense in high places. The facts 
are few and stirring. Horace Robert Kent had reported Umeseko 
Toyomatsu for smoking while on duty. His inexperienced eye had 
mistaken the glow of a jewel in the latter's ring for the glint of a 
cigarette. Fearful of losing his captain's good opinion and his place 
on board, the injured innocent invaded the mate's cabin with his 
cap on and flashed the exculpating jewel in that officer's face. 
Hand-to-hand scuffling ensued, of which contradictory accounts are 
naturally given, with the result that Toyomatsu received a black eye, 
was put in irons, and released at once to mollify his comrades, while 
Mr. Kent was bitten five or six times in the thigh and hidden by his 
prudent skipper from the vengeance of the crew. Each brought a 
charge of assault against the other. At the trial the evidence of 
eye-witnesses seems to have been entirely eclipsed by the opinions of 
medical gentlemen, who deserve the honours of the verdict. Dr. 
Sagara opined that a black eye (the organ not even being closed up) 
would prevent a sailor from work for more than twenty days, and 
would take from three to four weeks to heal completely ; Dr. Fujise 
compared the wounds in the thigh of the third mate with the shape 
of the quartermaster's teeth, and found that they almost completely 

C 



34 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

coincided, but was still unable to assert that they were caused by 
biting. Sentences : six months' rigorous imprisonment for the 
Englishman, five days' detention for the Japanese. The inequality 
of the punishments was quickly remedied. The Tokyo Court of 
Appeal quashed the decision of the original tribunal, and reduced the 
sentence from six months' imprisonment to ten days' detention. I 
dwell at some length on this trivial case of common assault for two 
reasons. First, it is satisfactory to remark how promptly an excess 
of partial severity was corrected; secondly, I feel sure that Mr. 
Kent is the only foreigner on whom the evil foretold by Cassandra 
has fallen within six months of the coming into operation of the 
treaties. Otherwise I should have received other and more in- 
dignant pamphlet-homilies on the baneful fulfilment of prophecy. 

Finally, my informant calls attention to recent cases of official 
bribery and corruption. He cites the name of Mr. Koyama 
Konosuke, M.P., who was charged in Parliament with receiving a 
bribe of 2000 yen from the Government of the day (1899), and who, 
so far from denying it, sued in a court of law for the remainder of 
the money due to him. Being called upon by his constituents to 
resign, he replied with a threat of exposing implicated colleagues, and 
apparently retained his seat. Both Houses of the Legislature would 
seem to be tainted by similar practices, for The Japan Mail (of 
April 10, 1900) has a paragraph, headed " The Peers Scandal," to the 
following efTect : 

" It is now alleged that no less than twenty-four members of the 
House of Peers are implicated in the bribery scandal connected with 
the Religious Bill affair. Some of them are alleged to be desirous of 
hushing up the matter, but their fellow-members insist that some- 
thing must be done to clear the reputation of the House. It is im- 
possible to tell how much truth there may be in these rumours." 

It is obviously " impossible " for a foreigner to collect such proofs 
of corruption as would be good evidence in a court of law, nor, if 
possible, would it be worth his while. The cry of vendu is so freely 
bandied by a factionist Press, that, remembering the famous legend 
of a Dreyfus syndicate, one hesitates to pin faith on vague para- 
graphs. Moreover, whatever foundation of fact underlie the charges, 
it should be borne in mind that parliamentary government has only 
existed for ten years, and it would not be reasonable to expect in a 
decade those virtues which were of very slow growth in our own 
Mother of Parliaments. Corruption at Pretoria or St. Petersburg is 
no bar to " the sympathies of the civilised world " (outside Anglo- 



BEHIND THE SCENES 35 

Saxondom), and in any case these evils may safely be left for correc- 
tion to those whom they most immediately concern. The Japanese 
Press is conscious of them, anxious to deal with them ; the laws are 
stringent enough, if difficult to enforce. One notes them as a factor 
in Japanese politics to be neither exaggerated nor ignored, and turns 
to consider less purely domestic matters. 

Indirect confirmation of my impression that Christianity was losing 
ground in the country is furnished by the elaborate report of the 
American Board of Foreign Missions, of which the rose-coloured 
conclusions at first sight suggest the contrary. Stress is laid, for 
instance, on the fact that a prominent Christian was elected to the 
present Diet by a majority of five to one in Buddhist Kyoto ; but 
there is nothing to show that the election turned on doctrinal issues. 
One Japanese Christian was appointed "moral teacher" in the 
Sugamo penitentiary, with the result that all the rest, Buddhists by 
faith, resigned. Political reasons probably caused this appointment, 
for Sugamo is the prison to which all foreign delinquents will be sent 
under the new regime. The Board complains of strong opposition 
to the teaching of the elements of the Christian religion, not only in 
public but also in private schools, centred in the Education Depart- 
ment, and attributes it to widespread agnosticism, which, so far as it 
desires to conserve Buddhist influence, does so for ulterior social 
and intellectual ends. But I find the clearest proof of simultaneous 
success and failure in the admission that Christianity maintains its 
hold by practical philanthropy. Schools for neglected and criminal 
children, schemes for relieving discharged prisoners, benevolent works 
of all kinds, are promoted and carried out by Christians. Of good- 
ness of this sort the kind-hearted Japanese are thoroughly apprecia- 
tive, but it is the works, not the faith, which they admire. Holders 
of all creeds, or of none, must sympathise with this aspect of mis- 
sionary effort ; but it results, and perhaps happily, in a closer union 
of hearts than of minds. 

I conclude with a quotation from the/i/i, one of the most influential 
Tokyo papers — a quotation which speaks for itself and accords with 
the sorrowful vaticinations of Cassandra : 

" Decrease in the Number of Foreign Residents. — Quite contrary to 
expectations, there seems to be a gradual reduction in the number 
of foreigners residing in Yokohama, where they are more numerous 
than in any other part of the country. It is anticipated that the 
statistics will perhaps show some reduction for two or three years. 
The reason is supposed to be : (1) foreigners prefer Hongkong or 



36 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

Shanghai to Japan, owing to the difficulty of finding opportunities 
for gaining as large profits as formerly; and (2) their unfamiliarity 
with the Japanese law, which imposes undue restraint upon their 
movements. As a matter of fact, they have been surprised by the 
imposition of heavy taxes of various kinds, never dreamt of pre- 
viously. Moreover, in consequence of the coming into operation of 
the new tariff, they have been deprived of their profits on certain 
kinds of goods, such as liquors, cigars, &c. This is shown by the 
circumstance that the foreign merchants who have given up or are 
going to give up business are mostly dealers in these goods. In 
future foreigners who may be induced to come to this part of the 
world can only be, in consequence of the operation of the new 
treaties, those who have other objects than business and who will 
take the place of the present residents, who will certainly leave in the 
near future." 



RELIGIOUS PLAYS 



RELIGIOUS PLAYS 

The traveller who witnesses a " No Dance," hastily 
improvised for his amusement at the Maple Club of 
Tokyo, or who chances upon a pantomimic duologue 
in grotesque costume, rendered on a rough platform to 
divert the crowd before a temple at the matsuri — half 
fair, half festival — can really form no idea of the ex- 
quisite little dramas which for more than five cen- 
turies have been performed privately in the houses of 
Japanese nobles and are still enacted at rare intervals 
to an invited audience. The common term "No 
Dance " is rather misleading, since it only suggests the 
rhythmic posturing of the characters — very graceful, it 
is true, and pregnant with meaning for the initiated — 
but ignores other factors, such as the words, the story, 
and the music, which contribute quite as memorably 
to the total effect. Operetta will not do, since the 
choric strains, which stimulate attention and intensify 
emotion with their staccato accompaniment, are sub- 
ordinate throughout. If, then, that may be styled a 
play which revolves on a single episode and relates 
to no more than three or four persons, a very close 
parallel lies between these and the religious plays of 
Europe. In both you find the same reverence for the 



4 o JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

past, dictating the devout demeanour of actors and 
audience ; in both a minute traditional interpretation, 
governing the diction, the action, and the dress ; in 
both a perpetual association of the scenes depicted 
with sacred legends and the spirit world. But whereas 
Christianity yields one and the same drama, once in a 
decade, to the peasants of Oberammergau, the Shintoist 
Pantheon, sanctifying national history and full of deified 
heroes, appeals to both patriotic and religious instincts 
through the medium of an art sometimes immature 
but always refined. 

The roots of this musical pantomime reach far back 
into mythological times. The figure of the Terrible 
Female of Heaven, stamping on an inverted tub to 
startle the Sun Goddess from her cave, is generally 
invoked on the threshold of inquiries into the origin 
of Kagura, or temple-dancing. Grotesque and vener- 
able, it is not illuminating. More startling to me 
is the statement of a modern authority that "in the 
eighth century, in the later period of the Nara dynasty 
and at the beginning of the Heian period, combining 
the Korean and the Chinese music with the native, a 
certain perfect form of Japanese music came to exist." 
To comprehend this " perfect music," as rendered on 
drum, fife, and flute, esoteric education is required. 
But it may be admitted that certain Wagnerian effects 
of terror and suspense and tumultuous agitation are 
thumped and wailed into the auditor, while his ocular 
attention is absorbed by deliberate phantoms. Very 
deliberate are the phantom dancers, whether their 
theme be simple or complex. On the dancing stages 
at the Shinto temples of Ise and of Omi, on the four 
platforms of the Kasuga Temple at Nara, the subject 
was naturally mythological or had relation to the 



RELIGIOUS PLAYS 41 

temple's own history. Such songs as went with the 
dance were simple, short, and primitive. They would 
be heard at Court ceremonies, too, for the union of 
Church and State was close. They were sung by 
members of privileged families, who guarded and trans- 
mitted from father to son the professional secrets of 
their "perfect music." 

However, the beginning of the Ashikaga period in 
the fourteenth century saw the corruption and develop- 
ment of a perfect germ into complex variety. Both 
sacred and secular rivalry contributed to this result. 
The Biwa-hoshi, blind priests and lute-players, who 
went from castle to castle of the Daimyos, singing Hez&e- 
monogatari, historical romances of warlike quality in 
prose and verse, opened new vistas of subject-matter, 
while Skirabyoski, the refined and cultivated precursor 
of the comparatively modern geisha, extended both 
the scope and the significance of posture-dancing. 
The Kioku-mai, or memory- dance, came into vogue, 
being characterised by closer co-ordination of music 
and movement, while the accompanying song would 
often celebrate a romantic episode or a famous land- 
scape. Many of these songs survive, embedded in the 
chorus of No texts ; in fact, they may be regarded as 
the nucleus of No drama. 

The Muromachi Shogunate witnessed the final tran- 
sition from dance to drama, recitative and singing 
speeches and dramatis persona being superadded to 
the chorus. Kiyotsugu (w T ho died in 1406) and his 
son Motokiyo (who died in 1455) are generally credited 
with this development. They belonged to the Yusaki 
family — one of the four families who exercised here- 
ditary management of the Nara stage. They held a 
small estate, and succeeded in winning the Shogun's 



42 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

patronage for their Sartigaku or No, which became 
extremely popular at Court. Naturally enough, the 
choric songs became panegyrics of the reigning Shogun, 
and helped to embellish his Court pageants. 

It is not believed that the actor-manager did more 
than prepare and conduct the No, in which music and 
dancing were still the chief features. The author was 
contented to remain anonymous, and that for good 
reasons. Intellectual light shone mostly in the mon- 
asteries during that dark age of feudal fighting. If 
the Buddhist monk could make of this aristocratic 
amusement a vehicle for Buddhist teaching, individual 
obscurity was a small price to pay for corporate 
influence. Therefore, while it cannot be stated as a 
fact that the famous priests Ikkiu and Shiuran wrote 
the finest No poetry, it is certain that yurei or ghosts 
and Buddhist exorcisers became very common cha- 
racters on the No boards, while the chorus betrayed 
(as I am told) " many deep conceptions of mystic 
religion." What higher compliment has ever been 
paid to art, dramatic or pictorial, than the struggles of 
priests and politicians to wield its influence ? There is 
something pathetic in this aspect of the rivalry for 
Terpsichore's hand. At first she wore the red trousers 
of a Shinto priestess and was wooed by the Mikado. 
Then the Shogun came, a strong man armed, and with 
him she danced into the Buddhist camp. 

The sixteenth century gave the final touch to this 
musical drama, which approximated more and more to 
secular plays without ever entirely losing its official 
character. The ghosts faded out, the Buddhist in- 
fluence grew less marked, for it had to traverse the 
tyranny of Nobunaga, who patronised Christianity and 
destroyed the monasteries of Hiei-zan. But hence- 



RELIGIOUS PLAYS 43 

forward, as an aristocratic institution, the No was to 
retain its popularity, though since the sixteenth century 
none have been written. A programme is still extant 
on which the two greatest names in Japanese his- 
tory, those of Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu, star the list of 
performers. The actors were treated as samurai, 
military retainers, though the performers in popular 
shibai (theatres) were held in contempt In the latest 
specimens knighthood is the invariable theme, set to 
more various music and illustrated by more violent 
posturing. 

Throughout the Tokugawa era (1 602-1 868) every 
Daimyo who could afford it maintained a troupe of No 
players to reproduce for his edification the thoughts 
and habits of mediaeval art. Old costumes, old masks, 
old music were faithfully preserved ; no innovation of 
text or interpretation was allowed by the hereditary 
custodians and directors. And since the shock of the 
Restoration a reaction has set in, favouring their revival. 

At present there are in Tokyo six troupes of No 
players, with a repertoire of from two to three hundred 
plays. These retain so firm a hold on cultured con- 
servatives — the younger generation finds them slow 
— that Mr. Matsumoto Keichi, one of the leading 
publishers, is now issuing a series of one hundred and 
eighty-three illustrative colour prints — No no ye — 
whose fine drawing and delicately blent hues are as 
superior to the flamboyant aniline horror by which the 
Nihon-bashi print-seller advertises the newest blood- 
and-thunder melodrama as that itself is inferior to the 
aristocratically-nurtured No. Reproduced as faith- 
fully as may be, the pictures of Mr. Kogyo will, I 
hope, impress the reader with the archaic simplicity 
and beauty of the original design, provided that he 



44 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

have the gift of sympathetic intuition, so as to divine 
what tale of terror, what burden of grief, obscure to 
him, is yet manifest enough behind quaint mask and 
rigid gesture to the heirs of national hagiology. The 
solemnity and pathos of each dramatised incident in 
the life of hero or saint is emphasised by the time- 
honoured locutions of mediaeval Japanese, which of 
course convey by mere association, as Elizabethan 
English to us, the tone and atmosphere of dead cen- 
turies. Yet, independently of the musical old speech, 
so cumbrous and so courteous, it is impossible to miss 
the meaning of these tiny tragedies, enacted as they 
are by instinctive masters of gesticular eloquence. 
The writer was particularly fortunate in gaining admis- 
sion to a series of No produced by the Umewaka 
company or society, which has this advantage over the 
other five organisations, diverging on points of textual 
accuracy and stage ritual, that it traces unbroken 
descent through its chief from the Kanza school of 
music appertaining to the Yusaki family of Nara. 
When Commodore Perry forced open the door of the 
East in 1854, hitherto closed for more than two 
hundred years to Western barbarians, Mr. Umewaka 
captained a little band of No players attached to the 
then all-powerful household of Keiki, the last of the 
Tokugawa Shoguns. 

Then followed bloody civil war, the bombardment 
of Kago-shima and Shimonoseki, and the restoration 
of the Emperor to supreme power. The ex-Shogun 
immured himself, a private gentleman, in strict seclu- 
sion. His company of players was of course dis- 
banded, but little by little, from rare representations 
in the houses of friends to more frequent revivals, 
consequent on growing fame, their erudite and 



RELIGIOUS PLAYS 45 

enthusiastic chief was able to found his present very 
flourishing society. One gentleman, an ex-Daimyo, 
presented the troupe with a large stage of polished 
pine from his dismantled castle ; a second contributed 
a priceless store of plays in manuscript ; Mr. Umewaka 
himself brought the best gift of all, profound and 
practical knowledge of the stage technique, which is 
curiously elaborate in spite of seeming simplicity, and 
bristles with professional secrets. The orchestra 
consisted on this occasion of a flute and two taiko, 
drums shaped like a sand-glass and rapped smartly 
with the open palm. At irregular intervals, timed 
no doubt by the exigencies of the text, the musicians 
emitted a series of staccato cries or wailing notes, 
which seemed to punctuate the passion of the player 
and insensibly tightened the tension of the auditor's 
nerves. In two rows of three on the right of the stage 
sat the chorus, six most " reverend signiors " in the 
stiff costume of Samurai, who intervened now and 
again with voice and fan, the manipulation of the 
latter varying with the quality of the strains assigned 
to the singers. In placid moments the fan would 
sway gently to and fro, rocked on the waves of quasi- 
Gregorian chanting, but, when blows fell or apparitions 
rose, it was planted, menacing and erect, like a danger- 
signal before the choralist's cushion. The musicians 
were seated on low stools at the back of the stage 
before a long screen of conventional design, in which 
green pines trailed across a gold ground, harmonising 
admirably with the sober blues and browns of their 
kimono. 

A glance at the programme gave assurance of 
prolonged and varied entertainment, since no less than 
five religious plays and three kiogen (lit. mad words), 



46 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

or farcical interludes, were announced in the following 
order : 

i. Shunkwan, the High-Priest in Exile. 

2. Koi no Omone y the Burden of Love. 

3. Aoi no Uye, the Sick Wife. 

4. Funa Benkei, Benkei at Sea. 

5. TsuchiguniOy the Earth-Spider. 

Kiogen. 

1. Kitsune-Tsuki, Possession by Foxes. 

2. Roku Jizo, the Six Jizo. 

3. Fukuro Yamabusshi, the Owl-Priest. 

By an hour before noon the audience, seated on 
cushions in little pews holding four or six persons, 
had composed itself to that air of thoughtful anticipa- 
tion which I had hitherto associated with devotees 
of Ibsen or Wagner. Manyj peered through gold 
spectacles at the copies of the antique text, whose 
phraseology was not without difficulties even for the 
scholars and artists present ; the women's faces were 
far graver and more thoughtful than one usually sees 
in the land of laughing musum,6 ; the prevailing grey 
and black worn by women and men suffered sporadic 
invasions of bright colour wherever you saw children 
settling, like human butterflies. For these, though 
their ears availed them little, could follow with won- 
dering eyes the strange succession of gorgeous or 
terrible figures — warriors and spectres and court-ladies 
— evoked for their delight. 

The story of Shunkwan, however, was quite devoid 
of spectacular appeal. Exiled in 1177 with other 
rebellious priests by Kiyomori, the ruthless Taira 
chief, to Devil's Island (Kikai-gashima), he is dis- 
covered celebrating with his companions an oblation 
to Kumano Gongen and praying for speedy restitution 



m 



4*¥ 

1 ** $§*»»»* 




.Ad 



RELIGIOUS PLAYS 47 

to his fatherland. Pitiful indeed is the case of these 
banished suppliants, who wear the blue-and-white 
hempen skirts of fishermen and whose penury is such 
that they are obliged to bring the god water instead 
of sakd, sand instead of rice, and hempen fetters 
instead of white prayer - cord. Kumano Gongen 
hears and answers their petition. An imperial mes- 
senger arrives from Kyoto with a letter from the 
daughter of Shunkwan, announcing that the Son of 
Heaven, Lord of the Land of the Rising Sun, has 
been graciously pleased to recall his erring subjects, 
pardoning their offences -and inviting their prayers 
for an expected heir to the throne. Beaming with 
grateful joy, the old man now scans the imperial man- 
date more closely, only to find that his own name is 
omitted from the list of those forgiven. Yasugori 
and Moritsune will be taken, but he, Shunkwan, must 
be left. In vain do his fellow-exiles lament and 
protest; all know that the Son of Heavens decree 
must be obeyed to the letter. Accordingly, the others 
embark, while their disappointed chief falls, speech- 
less and hopeless, on the shore. A simple, poignant 
story ! So touchingly interpreted, that the primitive 
and even ludicrous makeshifts of the mounting seemed 
hardly incongruous ! The mooring and unmooring of 
the boat, for which the crudest parody in outline of 
rope and wood did duty, and the final embarkation 
(as represented in the picture) were gravely accom- 
plished in complete immunity from ill-timed laughter ; 
the messenger's grotesque hakama, elongated trousers, 
trailing a good yard behind the feet, that the wearer 
might seem to walk on his knees while about his 
master's business, provoked no smile ; in fact, any 
trivial details and defects were swallowed up in the 



48 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

prodigious earnestness of the actors. The part of 
Shunkwan was played by Mr. Umewaka himself with 
much pathos, depending entirely on tone, carriage, 
and gesture, since all facial expression is barred by the 
strict convention of playing the No in masks. While 
the presentation of spectres and supernatural beings 
must be facilitated by this custom, since many of the 
masks are masterpieces of imaginative skill, yet, where 
the interest is purely human, that illusion at which all 
drama aims is proportionately diminished. 

Now came the children's turn to laugh at the first of 
the kiogen, entitled Kitsune Tsuki, " Possession by 
foxes." Most of the comical interludes deal with rustic 
stupidity or cunning, and all refer in some way to 
religious belief or practice. If one may judge by the 
ubiquity of his images, the fox is the most sacred 
animal in Japan. No shrines are so numerous as those 
of Inari, the rice-goddess, and before each stand two 
white foxes, with snarling lips and teeth clenched on a 
mysterious golden object, which completely baffled the 
curiosity of M. Loti, though later writers declare it to 
be no more than a key, symbolising the portal of 
wealth unlocked by divine favour. But Inari herself 
is completely eclipsed in popular awe by her attendant 
foxes. It is they who, if not propitiated, ruin the rice 
crop ; they who have the power, like the weir-wolf, of 
assuming human shape and of " possessing " unfortu- 
nate beings, whose only chance of delivery lies in 
exorcism by a priest. In the case of the kiogen now 
presented this superstition had been turned to comical 
use. We learned that Farmer Tanaka had sent two 
of his men into the fields with rattles to scare away 
birds, laying on them many injunctions to beware of 
the daemonic fox, Kitsune, whose exploits had lately 






RELIGIOUS PLAYS 49 

made him the terror of that neighbourhood. The 
warning is but too effectual. So full are the watchers' 
minds of the dread of fox-possession, that, when their 
master appears with a jug of sakt in his hand as a 
reward and refreshment after labour, they believe him 
to be Kitsune, the tempter, and thrash him soundly 
out of his own rice-field ! 

Some have asserted that love, the romantic and 
chivalrous love of Western literature, is absent alike 
from the art and letters of Japan. Nevertheless, 
what could be more romantic than the title and plot of 
the play, attributed to the, Emperor Gohanazono though 
signed by Motokiyo — " Koi no Omoni," "The Burden 
of Love " ? The lover is Yamashina Shoji, an old man 
of high birth, but miserably poor, to whom out of 
charity has been entrusted the tending of the Emperor's 
chrysanthemums. A court-lady, seen by chance one 
day as he raised his head from the flowers, inspires 
a passion which he feels to be beyond hope or cure. 
He confides his unhappiness to one of the courtiers, 
who counsels him to carry a burden round and round 
the garden many times, until, haply, the lady "seeing, 
may relent." This he does. At first the burden seems 
light as air, being buoyantly borne, but gradually it 
grows heavier and heavier, until at last he staggers to 
the ground, crushed to death by unavailing love. Soon 
after his ghost appears, a melancholy spectre with long 
white hair and gown of silver-grey, with wattled staff 
and eyes of hollow gold. At this point all chivalry 
certainly vanishes, for the angry apparition stamps and 
glares, and, shaking locks and staff, stoutly chides the 
beauty for her callous cruelty. The lady does not once 
intervene, but throughout the piece sits motionless, a 
figure rather than a person, her eyes fixed on the burden 

D 



50 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS. 

itself, as it lies, concrete and symbolic, wrapped in 
apple-green brocade, near the front-centre of the stage. 
This inclusion of a significant silent object among the 
dramatis persons is curiously effective. The sight of 
Yamashina tottering beneath a physical weight would 
have made clumsy prose of a beautiful poetic truth. 
His feelings are better conveyed by the dirge-like 
song and lugubrious posturing, which poverty of lan- 
guage compels one to miscall a " dance." Full of 
dignity and fine gesture is the ghost's rebuke. Slowly 
revolving on his heels, or tossing back his streaming, 
silvery hair, now dashing his staff upon the ground, 
now raising his kimono sleeve slowly to hide his face, 
one felt that this weird figure was expressing elemental 
passion in a language more elemental than speech. I 
cannot say as much for the lady, whose coronet of thin 
gold with silver crescent in front and pendent pagoda- 
bells on either side, surmounting a mask of singular 
ugliness, seemed the fantastic headpiece of a crude idol 
very foolishly idealised. But it served to illustrate, with 
an irony which the imperial author had not intended, 
the so grievous "burden of love." 

Kyoto court-life of the twelfth century, painted for 
posterity in the famous, interminable pages of " Genji 
Monogatari," one of the oldest achievements of the 
lady-novelist, has found less tedious and equally faithful 
presentment in such dramatic miniatures as "Aoi no 
Uye," Prince Genji's long-suffering wife. Jealousy is 
the keynote of this lyrical play — that insatiable, self- 
torturing jealousy which is the hardest of demons to 
expel. Again I noticed a piece of curious, silent 
symbolism. The poor, demoniac wife, who gives her 
name to the play, does not appear, either as person or 
figure : in her stead a long strip of folded brocade, 



RELIGIOUS PLAYS 51 

suggesting a bed of sickness, lies immediately behind 
the footlights. Thus, though sub-conscious of her 
entity, the spectator is compelled to focus all attention 
on the apparition, which takes double form. First 
comes the spirit of the Princess Rokijo, who takes 
vengeance on her false lover (Genji is the Don Juan 
of Japan) by haunting the helpless Aoi in the shape 
of a pale wailing woman. A miko, or Shinto priestess, 
is summoned to exorcise the intruder. In vain she 
rubs her green rosary, muttering fervid prayers : the 
spirit wails more loudly, more intolerably, and only 
yields at last to the fiercer 4 spells and rougher wrestling 
of soul with soul on the part of a mountain-priest. But 
his victory is short-lived, for a terrible phantom, the 
Devil of Jealousy, wearing the famous Hanja mask, 
replaces Rokujo. Inch by inch the priest falls back, 
as the grinning demon with gilt horns and pointed 
ears slowly unveiled from a shroudlike hood glides 
forward to smite him with menacing crutch. To and 
fro the battle rages beside the prostrate Aoi no Uye : 
neither holy man nor devil will give way ; the scream- 
ing and shrill fifing of the musicians rise to frenzied 
pitch ; adjuration succeeds adjuration, until the evil 
spirit is finally driven away. Nothing can exceed the 
realism of this scene, so masterfully played that the 
hardiest agnostic must be indeed fancy -proof if he 
cannot feel something of the awe inspired into believers 
by this terrific duel. Moreover, this is exactly the sort 
of incident which exhibits to the full extent of their 
potency the peculiar characteristics of No drama. 
What human face, however disguised and distorted, 
could rival the malignant horror of a Japanese mask ? 
What mincing and gibing Mephistopheles could com- 
pare for a moment with the devilish ingenuity and 



52 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

suspense of this posture-pantomime, with its endless 
feints and threats and sallies and retreats ? And how 
the anguish of battle is enhanced by the "barbaric 
yawp " and sharp, intermittent drum-taps, which excite 
without distracting the spell-bound audience ! So 
abrupt and discreet is the interjected cry of the im- 
mobile musicians that one might easily take it for the 
defiant or hortative outburst of an invisible spirit 
attracted to the ghostly combat. Indeed, all that is 
wild and primitive in these enfants sauvages of Mel- 
pomene is chastened into harmony by the innate 
sobriety of Japanese art. The creative instinct works 
within small limits by small means, but with these 
means it contrives to project on its tiny stage a vital 
suggestion of the largest issues. The gods become 
marionettes for an hour, without wholly losing their 
godhead. 

Good-humoured drollery, of which the gods come in 
for a fair share, is no more alien to the Japanese than 
it was to the Greek temperament. And if one had to 
guess which divinity or divinities are regarded with 
more affection than awe by such light-hearted wor- 
shippers, one would certainly name the Rokujizo, or 
six Jizo. While Buddha and Kwannon, Tenjin and 
Inari, dwell in small or stately temples, augustly 
apart, the six Jizo sit sociably in a row by the road- 
side or on the outskirts of a shrine, protected (if 
protected at all) from the weather by a plain wooden 
shed. For they belong to the class of open-air minor 
deities familiarly known as " wet gods." Yet they 
play a large part in the emotional life of the people. 
Patrons of travellers, women, and children, they bear 
the semblance of a shaven priest with benevolent 
countenance, whose neck is generally encircled with a 



RELIGIOUS PLAYS 53 

child's bib of coloured wool, while his hand holds an 
emblematic jewel, a lotus, a pilgrim's staff, an incense- 
box, a rosary, or sometimes an infant. In most 
villages and near many schools will you find the six 
Jizo, for the country people, loving their children, 
cherish the children's patron-saint with particular 
attachment. The amusing kiogen named " Rokujizo" 
seemed to please the younger members of our audience 
infinitely more than the romantic and spectral dramas 
which preceded it. A pious farmer, anxious to attest 
his gratitude for a good harvest, resolves to put up six 
Jizo effigies in his fields, and, seeking a sculptor to 
carry out his design, falls in with a knavish fellow who 
boasts that he can carve statues more quickly than 
any one else in the world, and promises that the six 
shall be finished by the following day. The bargain 
is concluded. Then the pseudo-sculptor persuades 
three confederates to personate Jizo, entrusting them 
with the jewel, the staff, and the other symbols. As 
soon as they are well posed as living statuary, he 
brings the farmer to admire them, and, pretending 
that the other three are at the opposite end of the 
field, sends the extemporised gods by a short cut to 
anticipate the buyer's arrival. He, however, though 
duly impressed, desires to see the first three again, 
and then again the second three, until the imper- 
sonators, tired with running backwards and forwards, 
forget what pose and what emblem to assume, entirely 
destroying all illusion by their ridiculous perplexity. 
The farmer discovers the trick, and administers a 
sound drubbing to the fraudulent artist, while the Jizo 
make their escape. The humour of this naturally 
depends on the "business" of the performers, since no 
pretence is made to literary merit in the dialogue, 



\ 



54 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

which is couched in colloquial Japanese of the same 
period as the lyrical dramas themselves — that is, from 
the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. 

The most important, if not the most interesting, item 
in the programme was a little historic play in two 
scenes, entitled " Funa Benkei," or " Benkei at Sea." 
No figure in Japanese annals is so popular as Benkei, 
the devil youth (Oniwaka), credited with eight feet 
of stature, unless it be Yoshitsune, the valiant boy, 
who vanquished the giant in single combat on Gojo 
Bridge in Kyoto, and thus acquired a loyal and in- 
vincible henchman. The numberless adventures in 
which Benkei by strength or cunning ensures the 
success of Yoshitsune have been utilised again and 
again by painters and playwrights. Unfortunately, the 
fruits of victory are always snatched from Yoshitsune's 
grasp by the jealous despotism of his elder brother, 
Yoritomo, the terrible chief of the Minamoto faction. 
When the play opens he is discovered with a handful 
of faithful followers at Omono-no-ura, whither he has 
fled to escape the machinations of his brother ; but 
further progress is delayed by the arrival of Shizuka, 
a beautiful geisha, who entreats permission to bid him 
farewell. Benkei refuses to allow this, and asserts 
that his master wishes her to return at once to Kama- 
kura, the capital, without an audience. But the girl 
will not believe that her lover has sent so harsh a 
message, and insists on dancing once more before 
him. Shizuka's dance is very elaborate and beautiful, 
though a little tedious for the European, who has not 
been trained to appreciate the symbolic import of 
woven measure and waving arm. At the outset a 
tall golden head-dress, in shape like an elongated 
Phrygian cap, is carefully placed on her head. In 



RELIGIOUS PLAYS 55 

this she revolves and slowly, slowly expresses by that 
choregraphic language — which the profane would take 
years to acquire — all her passion and despair at losing 
her lover and lord. Yoshitsune, deeply moved, gives 
her a sakd cup, as a sign that she may carouse with 
him for the last time ; but Benkei, sternly insensible 
to dalliance, bids her withdraw and gives orders to 
set sail. 

Once more the performers take their places in a 
primitive piece of framework representing a boat, 
while the resources of orchestra and helmsman are 
taxed to their utmost in' the endeavour to simulate a 
storm. The fife screams, the drums thunder, the 
steersman stamps his foot, and suddenly out of the 
furious tempest rise grim spectres with black, fleecy 
hair, gilt horns, and blood-stained halberds. These 
are the ghosts of the Taira clan, slaughtered by the 
Minamoto in a great sea-fight at Dan-no-ura, two 
years before — a battle which might be termed the 
Bosworth Field of the great civil war which devas- 
tated Japan in the latter half of the twelfth century. 
Yoshitsune with youthful heat (he is always a boy in 
the No dramas) lunges at the phantoms and shouts his 
war-cry, but Benkei (who adds the functions of a priest 
to his other accomplishments) strikes down his sword, 
and, producing a rosary, hurls a volley of exorcising 
prayers at the discomfited ghosts. As always, the play 
ends in David's deliverance from danger by the re- 
sourcefulness of Goliath. 

" Tsuchigumo," the Earth-Spider, the last piece 
performed, is founded on a curious legend, whose chief 
merit may be that it affords excuse for a fantastic 
stage-picture. It seems that a band of robbers, who 
lived in caves and were known by the nickname of 



$6 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

earth-spiders, were routed from their lairs and exter- 
minated by Kintaro, servant of Yoremitsu, whose 
valour was much enhanced in popular estimation by 
the flattering rumour that the defeated pests were not 
men at all, but a race of enormous demon -insects. 
Accordingly, the climax of " Tsuchigumo " is a stirring 
encounter between Imperial Guards, armed with swords 
and spears, and masked monsters, who entangle their 
weapons and baffle their aim in a cloud of long gauzy 
filaments, resembling the threads of a spider's web. 
The piece is pure pantomime, owing even less than 
usual to music, incident, or poetic style. " The Owl- 
Priest," the last of the kiogen, calls for no description. 

Such are the religious plays in their last phase of 
development, the fruit of a religious revival on the 
part of archaeologists and patriots. They are a curious 
instance of wisely arrested growth. Had they never 
passed the border-line of archaic dancing, their in- 
terpreters would be a dwindling band of Shinto 
priestesses to gaping peasants. Had they followed 
in the track of popular drama, they might have been 
expanded to those loosely -knit and blood-curdling 
tableaux which delight the shopkeeper. But, being 
compressed within severe limits and addressed to none 
but educated audiences, they present in exquisite 
epitome the literature, the history, the musical and 
choregraphic art of mediaeval Japan. The foreigner 
derives from them an impression of the beliefs and 
customs, the manners of speech and dress, the heroism 
and the dignity, of feudal times. But to a native they 
convey far more than this. "The No poetry," writes 
an enthusiast, "is like a great store of the treasures 
of Eastern culture. It is full of allusions to the clas- 
sical stories of * Manyoshii * and ' Kokinshu,' Chinese 



RELIGIOUS PLAYS 57 

poetry and Buddhist scriptures. Its chief characteristic 
is colour. The words are gorgeous, splendid, and 
even magnificent, as are the costumes." But of their 
literary value, and how far that value is enhanced or 
impaired by flying puns and prismatic pillow-words, 
I cannot judge. The Buddhist authorship is very 
obvious in the case of " Aoi no Uye," for it will be 
noticed that, where the miko, or Shinto priestess, 
failed to exorcise the Demon of Jealousy, the priest of 
Buddha succeeded. But perhaps, in art of this kind, 
so innocent of construction, so dependent on allusion, 
it matters very little that the author should efface 
himself behind the ideals advocated in his work. The 
No are frankly didactic. Piety, reverence, martial 
virtues are openly inculcated, though never in such 
a way as to shock artistic sensibilities. Beauty and 
taste go far to disguise all structural deficiencies. 

But let us not apply to these the standard by which 
we judge mature drama, demanding situation, character, 
plot, movement. Rather compare them with the 
miracle-plays and mysteries of the Chester or Coven- 
try collection, which hover between scriptural tableaux 
and Gothic farce of a peculiarly gross kind. There is 
no beauty in those rhymed versions of " The Descent 
into Hell," "Adam and Eve," or "The Temptation in 
the Wilderness." The authors had such small sense of 
decency and congruity, that after a serious attempt to 
handle a solemn vision in " Pilate's Wife's Dream," you 
are confronted with this stage-direction: (" Here shall 
the Devil go to Pilate s wife and draw the curtain, as 
she lieth in bed, but she, soon after that he is come in, 
shall make a rueful noise, running on the scaffold with 
her shirt and her kirtle in her hand, and she shall 
come before Pilate like a mad woman?) Imagine the 



5 8 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

wildest of kiogen incidents invading a No ! How 
shocked a Japanese audience would have been ! If 
the No seem occasionally naif and puerile, the gross 
enfantillage of European miracle-plays none but 
readers of them can believe. And, when we reach the 
tedious " Moralities," which coincided in this country 
with the advent of the Protestant Tudors, and were 
therefore written a century later than the best of the 
No, the palm of sacred drama for beauty, interest, 
and pathos must still be awarded to the disciples of 
Buddha. Could anything less human or less dramatic 
be imagined than a cast of personified abstractions, 
bearing such names as Good Counsel, Knowledge, 
Abominable Living, and God's Merciful Promises ? 
We must console ourselves with the reflection that, 
when once the stage had freed itself from ecclesiastical 
fetters, the popular drama in England shot far ahead 
of popular drama in Japan. No student of dramatic 
art could think for a moment of bracketing Chika- 
matsu with Shakespeare. 



POPULAR PLAYS 



, POPULAR PLAYS 
I 

< 

Between the sacred opera of Tokyo and the comic 
opera of London the difference is so stupendous, that 
one shudders to reflect on the unfortunate fact that 
English playgoers, until quite lately, derived most of 
their ideas about Japan from "The Mikado" of 
Mr. W. S. Gilbert and "The Geisha" of Mr. Owen 
Hall. In 1885 so little was known about Japanese 
customs and characteristics, that the Bab Balladist ran 
no risk of insulting the intelligence of his auditors 
when he introduced his puppets with the words : 

" We are gentlemen of Japan, 
Our attitude's queer and quaint ; 
You're wrong, if you think it ain't." 

There was no one to tell him that his "gentlemen of 
Japan " were not Japanese at all, but Chinamen with- 
out pigtails. The very names — Pish-Tush, Nanki- 
Poo, Pitti-Sing — were redolent of China, while Pooh- 
Bah, with his insatiable appetite for bribes, was a 
typical mandarin. However, the author had picked 
up a real war-song, tune and all (" Miyasama, 
miyasama "), and the Three Little Maids from School 
giggled very prettily in their novel costumes. Subse- 



62 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

quent information throws a curious light on the 
misleading characteristics of the Gilbert and Sullivan 
opera, enabling me to acquit the producers of ignor- 
ance, but not of mystification. I learn that the 
Japanese representative accredited to the Court of 
St. James's very naturally objected to the slight im- 
plied in attaching the name of his imperial master to 
a frivolous and ridiculous extravaganza. One would 
have thought that the most obvious obligations of 
courtesy dictated a change of title and of rank in the 
leading character. Instead, pains were taken to make 
the action and demeanour of the performers so exag- 
gerated that no Japanese would recognise in them his 
fellow-countrymen, while the British public, not being 
in the secret, was encouraged to suppose the local 
colour as correct as was compatible with the exigencies 
of such a piece. 

Eleven years later came " The Geisha." By this 
time Mr. Arthur Di6sy had founded the Japan Society, 
and gladly brought special knowledge to the help of 
the management. The result was a very charming 
and realistic picture, so far as externals were con- 
cerned. The rickshaw-man and dapper policeman, 
the wistaria and chrysanthemum, the frolicsome tea- 
house girls, might have been imported from Yokohama. 
This author, too, had picked up a real native song ("Jon 
kina, jon kina "), of which the associations were fortu- 
nately not explained to the audience. But the plot of 
" The Geisha " was as farcically untrue to life as that of 
11 The Mikado." And this time some one was found to 
say so. An indignant Tokyo journalist, who happened 
to see the opera, thus commented on its import : 

" The idea of Japan prevalent in foreign countries is 
thus reflected : 



POPULAR PLAYS 63 

" Happy Japan, 

Garden of glitter ! 
Flower and fan, 

Flutter and flitter ; 
Lord of Bamboo, 

(Juvenile whacker !) 
Porcelain too, 

Tea-tray and lacquer ! " 



" Light-hearted friends of Japan find in these lines the 
most happy features of the country, and overlook the 
gross injustice done in the play to the Japanese nation. 
A Japanese chief of police is made to proclaim publicly 
that superior authority exists in order to satisfy the 
personal desires of its holder. Human souls are sold 
by public auction, and a person may be found guilty, 
according to law, after trial or before ! I would not 
complain of these imputations, or rather results of 
ignorance, creeping into a comic piece if it were not 
patronised by those who think themselves good friends 
of Japan, and if it were not illustrative of the way in 
which they look at our country." 

At last, in September 1899, a serious romantic play, 
purporting to represent Japanese life, was produced 
under the title of " The Moonlight Blossom." It was 
even more faithfully staged than the comic operas. 
We now saw for the first time a Shinto priest, a 
blind shampooer, and a temple with wooden torii and 
stone lanterns. The plot was compounded of Adelphi 
elements, familiar enough, in spite of their flavouring 
from Liberty's. You had the good and bad brothers, 
the misunderstood heroine, the intriguing widow, 
forged documents, secret meetings, attempted murder. 
You had even the " comic relief" and cockney humour 
of a duel on stilts. But Adelphi incidents would not 



64 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

have mattered so much (the Tokyo drama is mostly 
melodrama) if the author had avoided Adelphi psy- 
chology. No Japanese woman indulges in the inde- 
pendence or the invective of Naniwa. " What stupid 
owls men are ! " might pass for a maidenly jest in 
this country ; never in that. If Arumo were truly a 
Nagasaki priest, he would never condescend to solicit 
the advice and affection of the other sex. The fatal 
substitution of Occidental for Oriental particulars in 
" the way of a man with a maid " vitiated Mr. Fernald's 
claim to interpret Japanese romance. His men and 
women lacked the dignity and severity of Eastern 
etiquette. 

In adapting " Madame Butterfly," a popular Ame- 
rican story, for the Anglo-Saxon stage, Mr. David 
Belasco was on far safer ground. Since M. Pierre 
Loti set the fashion, many romancers have exploited 
the pathos of temporary marriage between the faithless 
Westerner and the trustful Oriental girl, but hitherto, 
in spite of the obvious opportunities for scenic effect, 
the theme had not been handled by a serious dramatist. 
Now, Mr. Belasco relies greatly, as all who saw his 
version of " Zaza " will remember, on the electrician 
and the limelight man. To them belongs the credit of 
the most exquisite and typical episode in " Madame 
Butterfly." As poor little O Cho San sat patiently at 
her window, with her baby asleep beside her and her 
face turned towards the harbour where lay the newly 
arrived ship of her fickle lieutenant, for full twenty 
minutes there was silence behind the footlights, while 
through the paper panes of the shoji could be seen the 
transition of dusk to darkness, of darkness to twilight, 
of dawn to day. All the poetry of the play was in 
those twenty minutes, and a great deal of its truth. 



POPULAR PLAYS 65 

Devotion and dumb endurance are more character- 
istic, I think, of such a woman than the melodramatic 
suicide which touched so many of her audience to 
tears. If a competent musician had co-operated with 
the stage-manager to give us a play without words 
in the manner of " L'Enfant Prodigue," I should 
have been better pleased, for the strange " broken 
American " jargon and the silly monotonous song 
which Miss Evelyn Millard had to say and sing, 
though legitimate enough, were tiresomely out of har- 
mony with the grace and, beauty of her movements, 
her looks, her costume. An extraordinary lapse of 
taste was that which permitted the dying heroine 
to wave the star-spangled banner in her child's 
face. But most of all I doubt the verisimilitude of 
the alleged motive for self-destruction. Sometimes 
Madame Chrysantheme counts her money and feels 
rather relieved when her foreign lover sails away; 
sometimes she regrets him with genuine sorrow, and 
might conceivably put an end to her life if confronted 
with the alternative of an odious match. But what she 
would not do is what Madame Butterfly does — namely, 
consider that she had suffered a dishonour expiable 
only by death. The Western sentiment of honour is 
out of place in such a connection, for she had been 
party with open eyes to a legal, extra-marital contract, 
sanctioned by usage and arranged by her relations. 
The infidelity of her partner might wound her heart ; 
it could not strike her conscience. 

After many more or less accurate adumbrations of 
Japanese life on the boards of London theatres, at last, 
in the spring of 1900, came " The celebrated Japanese 
Court Company from Tokyo," of which the leading 
stars, Mr. Otojiro Kawakami and Madame Sada 

E 



66 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

Yacco, were freely described as the Henry Irving and 
Ellen Terry of the Far East. Most of the critics, 
expecting too much and understanding too little, went 
empty away, or if they derived any pleasure from the 
entertainment, derived it from purely aesthetic and 
undramatic qualities. For a week the stars shone on 
empty benches ; but then the fashionable and artistic 
public, which has a habit of ignoring the professional 
critic, became aware of the fact that a miniature 
comedy and tragedy of rare delicacy and charm, as 
naif as they were beautiful, could be seen, and seen 
only for a few afternoons, in the prosaic neighbour- 
hood of Notting Hill. Success was assured, and we 
are promised a return visit in the autumn. But the 
critics were partly justified in their cold reception of 
alien art. They had come for drama and been put off 
with pantomime. " If this be Japanese drama," they 
said, "a little of it goes a long way. We have had 
enough." Had they been given drama as it is played 
in Tokyo, with long, irrelevant scenes and a plot 
requiring four hours to unravel, how much more dis- 
contented they would have been ! 

It is a pity that the advertising note was pitched 
too high. Good wine needed less bush. There is 
no " Japanese Court Company," but his Majesty 
the Emperor was once present at a performance by 
Mr. Kawakami during a garden-party in the grounds 
of the Marquis Kuroda. Mr. Kawakami is certainly 
not the " Henry Irving of Japan," for that title, what- 
ever be its precise meaning, belongs rather to Ichikawa 
Danjuro, associated for more than half a century with 
the impersonation of historical and mythical heroes. 
But he holds a high and honourable position among 
actors of the soshi school, as they are called — a school 





MR. DANJURO AS " LADY OF KASVGA" 
(A 87) 



MR. DANJURO AS " JIRAIYA " (p. 262) 





MADAME SADA YACCO (p. 67) 



MR. OBOJIRO KAWAKAMI (/. 67) 



FAMOUS JAPANESE PLAYERS 



POPULAR PLAYS 67 

which bears some resemblance to the Theatre Libre 
or the Theatre de l'CEuvre. The soshi were students, 
desirous of reforming and modernising the conservative 
traditions of their stage, and Mr. Kawakami's contribu- 
tions to the movement consisted of two plays : a 
realistic piece, founded on the war with China, which 
brought him great profit and renown, and an adaptation 
of " Round the World* in Eighty Days." As an actor 
he is certainly free from the painful mannerisms of the 
older generation : his elocution is more even, his action 
more quiet and sudden, his facial expression less 
exaggerated. As for Sada' Yacco, who braved the 
public opinion of her countrywomen by being the first 
of her sex to act in company with masculine comrades, 
her presence would be an acquisition to any stage. 
Until three years ago she was a geisha, and thus 
combines with much physical attraction of voice and 
face the secret of supremely graceful movement. Her 
dances were revelations of the witchery of Salome's art. 
Her histrionic powers are not less remarkable. 

The pieces selected for representation were of course 
wholly Japanese in subject and sentiment, but, being 
greatly modified to suit the supposed infirmities of 
foreign playgoers, they scarcely gave a correct im- 
pression of the average Japanese play. To begin with, 
that the sound of a strange language might not grow 
wearisome, the dialogue was ruthlessly cut and cur- 
tailed ; next, as much dancing as possible was intro- 
duced, so that the damari, or pantomimic scene, which 
in Tokyo is more or less of the nature of " comic 
relief," sandwiched between exciting incidents, almost 
became the staple of the play. Finally, the co- 
incidental music, which strikes so oddly on European 
ears, was kept within wise limits. But, so far from 



68 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

blaming Mr. Kawakami for these alterations, it is 
evident that he erred on the right side, and that we 
should thank him for lopping away several excrescences 
which disfigure the drama of his native land. 

11 Zingoro, an Earnest Statue Carver," narrates the 
pretty legend of Pygmalion and Galatea, with the addi- 
tion of a jealous wife. Galatea is a famous geisha, 
of whom Zingoro carves a statue and falls in love with 
his own handiwork. The transformation from wood to 
womanhood is familiar ; one has seen it in " Niobe," in 
" La Poupee," in " Pygmalion and Galatea," but here it 
is accomplished by a fanciful piece of satire. " Mirror 
is the spirit of woman," says the proverb, and the 
sculptor has merely to slip a kagami into the bosom of 
his feminine figure, whom vanity at once stirs to life. 
Zingoro's delighted astonishment and the doll's awaken- 
ing consciousness are vividly portrayed, culminating 
in a mimetic dance, in which Galatea copies all her 
maker's movements. But the climax is reached when 
the jealous wife enters, and, seeking to reach her rival, 
is arrested by the simultaneous animation of the God 
of Thunder, the Carpenter, the Spearman, and the 
Dwarf, who had up to that moment remained so 
motionless that most of the audience believed them to 
be lay-figures. I fancy none but Oriental actors could 
have achieved this coup de thd&tre, involving the strain 
of prolonged muscular tension in attitudes of fantastic 
violence. 

Muscular feats were also prominent, too prominent, 
in "Kojima Takanori " or " The Loyalist." This 
historical drama, which should have occupied three 
hours, and was compressed into half-an-hour, is 
founded on a famous instance of feudal loyalty. In 
the beginning of the thirteenth century Yoshitoki, the 



POPULAR PLAYS 69 

chief of the Hojo family, acquired supreme power 
under the title of Shikken (minister of the Shogun or 
commander-in-chief), and banished three emperors to 
the little island of Oki. One of these, the Emperor 
Godaigo, was passing through Inosha on his way to 
exile, when Takanori, a faithful knight, learned of his 
arrival, and, having adopted the disguise of a straw 
rain-coat and hat, taken by force from two peasants, 
hid himself in the royal garden. There, since even 
his prodigious valour was unequal to the task of 
rescuing his sovereign from Yoshitoki's guards, he 
resolved at least to furnish consolation by an act of 
graceful chivalry. Planing the bark of a cherry-tree 
with his sword, he painted on it with his writing-brush 
the well-known words of an ancient poem, signifying 
"While I live, you reign." The soldiers of the 
Shikken discovered and attacked him, but suffered an 
inglorious repulse. Then, as a supreme reward, the 
bamboo blind of the adjoining villa being lifted for a 
moment, the Mikado smiled gratefully on his brave 
adherent, who, touched to the heart, succumbed to 
happy tears. 

This poetic and passionate loyalty, so strangely 
transported to Notting Hill, was admirably embodied 
by Mr. Kawakami. Alternately fierce and pensive, 
agile and immobile, he played the part of Takanori 
with such force and feeling, that yamato-damashii, the 
fervent temper of Japanese chivalry, lived and moved 
before us, a visibly realised ideal. I fear, however, 
that for most of us the serious side of the play was 
marred by terrific, perpetual fighting. It cannot be 
doubted that, in days when bows and arrows, swords 
and spears, were the only weapons, men were capable 
of extraordinary, acrobatic, hand-to-hand encounters. 



70 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

An American critic, who studied this feature of the 
acting from the point of view of a professional pugilist, 
was astounded by the number of throws, lifts, and 
twists employed, in addition to those tricks peculiar 
to jujutsu, which other races have yet to learn. But 
the clash of sparkling swords and the thud of falling 
bodies were so incessant, that one was apt to lose 
sight of the ferocious realism, and notice only the 
comic surprises of this partly historical, partly con- 
ventional melde. To one irreverent lady it suggested 
the idea of furious grasshoppers battling on the slopes 
of Fuji. 

The last play, written by Mr. Kawakami himself 
about ten years ago — ''The Geisha and the Knight" — 
is dramatically the best as well as the most pictur- 
esque. It furnishes Madame Sada Yacco with a 
part which affords full scope for her talents. It 
proves her not only an ethereal dancer, but a tragic 
actress of real power. When the curtain rises we are 
in the Yoshiwara of Yedo (euphemistically termed the 
geisha-quarter), with its line of cherry-trees in full 
blossom between the fifty tea-houses, with the bust- 
ling crowd of domestics, minstrels, dancing-girls, and 
samurai, conventionally disguised, as a knight was 
bound to be, by amigasa, or large braided hats. 
Katsuragi, the famous courtesan, attended by her 
little bevy of servants, passes in gorgeous apparel on 
those high, black-lacquered sabots which only the taiyu 
might wear. Soon a quarrel bursts out between 
her rival suitors, and Banza, determined to provoke 
a duel, inflicts on Nagoya the disgraceful insult of 
say ate, a blow on the sword from a sword's hilt. But 
scarcely has the fight begun when the girl throws 
herself between and compels her lover to desist. 



POPULAR PLAYS 71 

The second act passes in a Buddhist temple, where 
Nagoya, flying with his fiancde, Orikime, from the 
jealous and abandoned beauty, has taken refuge. But 
Katsuragi, well knowing that no woman may enter 
there alone, yet tries to cajole the genial priests by 
the pretence of dancing in honour of Buddha. Per- 
mission is given. First she treads a solemn temple- 
dance, a no-mat, wearing the golden mitre of a mediaeval 
geisha ; then, as the jocular monks relent and even 
mimic her, she performs dance after dance. A child, 
she trips through the ball-dance (nzaru-odori), chasing 
and tossing an imaginary ball with nimble gaiety ; a 
woman, she personates the cherry - blossom, and, 
crowned with a floral emblem, while red flames of 
flowers unroll from her hands, she stoops and sways 
like a bough in May ; a priestess of Inari, the rice- 
goddess, with upturned hands and conical drum she 
depicts the terror of the goblin-fox in a pas de 
fascination woven of strange swift rushes and sudden 
turns. But all her wiles are useless. The monks 
roughly repulse her when she attempts to enter the 
temple itself. But Katsuragi is not to be baulked. 
Suddenly she flies through the gate and as suddenly 
reappears, driving before her the hapless Orikime, 
whom she batters down with the huge striker of the 
temple-bell. At this moment, with bare arms and 
dishevelled hair, she thrills and dominates the audience : 
the fairy has become a fury ; the comedy is at once 
attuned by this tragic figure to ghastly seriousness. A 
priest aims a blow at her, but Nagoya arrives in time 
to ward it off, and, panting, frenzied by conflicting 
passions, she sinks dying in her lover's arms. 

A fourth play was subsequently added, which I had 
not the good fortune to see ; but from the foregoing 



72 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

descriptions it will be evident that Mr. Kawakami 
brought us, if not entire plays, at any rate authentic 
glimpses of the unfamiliar world in which Japanese 
playgoers delight. It is an ingenious, palpitating 
world, richly stored with action and sentiment and lit 
with many cross-lights of allusive fancy. There is so 
much naif and childish joy in it, so many pretty and 
grotesque details, that one easily is diverted by these 
from the consideration of its deeper aspects. Both 
are better comprehended by a retrospective glance at 
theatrical history. 

It is rather interesting to observe that national 
drama began its career in England and Japan at 
about the same time. In 1575 Okuni, the pretty 
priestess who ran away from the Kizuki temple in 
Izumo with Nagoya Sanzaburo, and made her peace 
with the god Onamuji by devoting part of the receipts 
to repairing his shrine, gave her first theatrical per- 
formance at Kyoto. In 1576 "the Earl of Leicester's 
servants " erected the first public theatre in Blackfriars. 
The times were dramatic, and the excitement of foreign 
adventure quickened the impulse of the masses towards 
a more turbulent form of art than religious plays. The 
Spanish Armada was defeated in 1588, and in 1592 
Hideyoshi's armada set sail for the conquest of Corea. 
The dramatists were men of similar stamp. Just as 
Greene and Marlowe were reckless rebels against 
tradition and convention, so Chikamatsu was a ronin, 
or disgraced samurai, too headstrong to endure feudal 
discipline. Small wonder, then, that their plays were 
full of "coarse horrors and vulgar blood-shedding." 
Independence of Christian " Mysteries" and Buddhist 
No was a marked characteristic of the secular 
humanistic drama, but whereas England had not long 



POPULAR PLAYS 73 

to wait for a Shakespeare, the fifty odd five-act pieces 
of Chikamatsu were written between 1690 and 1724. 

Moreover, they were written for marionettes. This 
fact explains many surviving customs, which hamper 
theatrical representation to the present day. Although 
the thread of poetical narrative, on which spectacular 
episodes were strung, is much attenuated, the chorus, 
charged with reciting it to musical accompaniment, is 
not yet banished from a cage or stage-box behind the 
footlights to the right of the audience. Many actors 
retain the stiff, jerky motions of the wire-pulled dolls 
which they were formerly taught to imitate, and 
whereas the words through artificial declamation are 
often difficult to follow, more persistent appeal is made 
to the eye than the ear by pose and gesture. Why 
the dramatist should have preferred wooden to human 
puppets is hard to say, unless it be that they were 
capable offmore amazing contortions, for acrobatic 
activity plays a large part in legitimate drama, which 
would seem incomplete without damari, or panto- 
mimic scenes. 

Chikamatsu was followed by Takeda Izumo, who 
reduced the function of the chorus, and thus lessened 
the opportunity for literary display. In both writers 
you find sensational plots, surcharged with incident 
and developed in daring disregard of probability. 
While the marionettes' theatre at Osaka was thus 
served, the men's theatre at Yedo was provided with 
pieces of a similar character with regard to substance, 
though the style was colloquial and the dialogue largely 
invented by the actors. Since the eighteenth century 
it may be said without injustice that the kabuki-shibai 
(popular theatre) has remained stationary. Certain 
improvements in histrionic and scenic matters have 



74 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

been introduced, but no development in construction 
and character-drawing, as we understand those terms, 
no change in the peculiar ethical and feudal teachings 
of the Yedo period, has supervened. Enter a Tokyo 
theatre to-day, and you will find yourself in old Japan, 
among resplendent monsters, whose actions violate our 
moral sense, yet exhibit a high and stern morality by 
no means out-moded through the advent of modern 
ideas. 

Beauty and duty are the hall-marks that stamp as 
authentic the plays which delight and instruct the 
Japanese. A race of artists, they expect and obtain 
such stage-pictures as no other stage affords. To 
watch act after act of their spectacular tragedies is 
like looking through a portfolio of their best colour- 
prints. One revels in the rich series of glowing hues, 
flowing lines, majestic contours. And, whereas in a 
play by Shakespeare or Moliere, however sumptuously 
mounted, the European actor often spoils the picture 
by inability to wear the garb and adopt the gait of 
more ceremonious ages, becoming a vociferous fashion- 
plate, a strenuous caricature, the Oriental actor never 
does so. He has not been forced to acquire, having 
never lost, the dignified movements proper to more 
deliberate dress. His pictorial charm is enhanced by 
his faculty of sublime repose. Fidgety "supers" are 
unknown. Moreover, visible beauty, of which the 
credit may be shared between costumier and stage- 
manager, is supplemented by the invisible beauty of 
ideas. The author can give free rein to fancy. Dragons 
and demons, ogres and magicians, will not be wasted 
on prosaic pittites, who starve their imagination by 
feeding it once a year on vulgarised pantomime, 
because to them music-hall ditties are more congenial 



POPULAR PLAYS 75 

than a midsummer-night's dream His audience would 
just as soon hear a fairy-story as a love-story. When 
" The Tongue-cut Sparrow " or u The Fisher-Boy of 
Urashima " is presented, the adults are quite as appre- 
ciative as the children. Perhaps this imaginative 
audience is too complaisant. It ignores the cloaked 
attendants, who creep about the stage to remove 
" properties " or in other ways assist the actors, because 
it knows that their black garments denote invisibility 
and is much too polite to perceive them. The same 
readiness to meet illusion half-way is shown by the 
retention of the hana-michi or flower- walks, two 
inclined platforms which slope from the stage to the 
back of the auditorium, trisecting the pit and enabling 
the actors to make their entry or exit through the 
midst of the spectators. On the other hand, they 
facilitate the execution of processional and recessional 
effects. 

After all, the aim of Eastern art is not illusion, but 
edification. However clear the call of beauty, duty's 
voice is louder still — duty, not as we Westerns conceive 
it, a half-hearted compromise between our own interests 
and those of others, but complete moral and mental 
suicide. No lesson was more impressively preached to 
the people by the dramatists in hundreds of historical 
plays than the duty of obedience at any price. Iyeyasu 
had established a pax japonica, a golden age, in which 
there was no war, but a rigid system of caste upon 
caste : obedience was the cement which held the whole 
together. The cultivated samurai were not allowed to 
enter the theatre, but the masses were melted to tears 
and heated to transports of patriotic subservience by 
the representation of heroic self-sacrifice. As a political 
instrument the Greek Church is not more useful to the 



76 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

Czar for indoctrinating docile peasants than the Yedo 
drama was of service to the Shogun. 

One of the most admired examples of unscrupulous 
virtue is Nakamitsu, applauded in 1898 as in 1598, for 
the same hero holds the stage for centuries. This is 
the story of Nakamitsu. His feudal lord, Manju, had 
confided a reprobate son, named Bijomaru, to his care, 
in the hope that a samurais control would prove more 
efficacious than a priest's ; but, as Bijomaru continued 
to " indulge in all sorts of wild sports, sometimes 
going so far as to kill innocent common people," 
Nakamitsu was ordered to put him to death. Instead 
of doing so, he beheaded his own son, Kojumaru, and 
took the head to his master, who, believing in his 
fidelity, refused to inspect it. Years afterwards, when 
Bijomaru has become an irreproachable priest, he is 
restored to his father, who forgives Nakamitsu for dis- 
obeying him and rewards his self-sacrifice with the 
gift of an adopted son and an extensive tract of land. 
Now, the moral of this story to us appears atro- 
cious, that a father may murder his son to oblige his 
general, but a little reflection will show that the Jewish 
legend of the interrupted sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham, 
though similar, is less heroic. For Nakamitsu's act 
was voluntary, and his son, eager to be sacrificed on 
the altar of duty, welcomed death, while Manju had not 
demanded such cruel fidelity. 

A typical instance of the teaching and technique of 
popular plays is furnished by " Ichi-no-tani Futaba- 
gunki " (" The Tale of the Sapling of Ichi-no-tani "), 
produced with exceptional splendour and a first-rate 
cast — both Danjuro and Kikugoro, leading Japanese 
actors, were included — at the chief Tokyo theatre in 
the autumn of 1898. The incident, more or less 



POPULAR PLAYS 77 

historical, on which it is founded, is simple enough. 
During the great civil war between the Taira and 
Minamoto clans in the twelfth century, a Minamoto 
general, Kumagaya, is said to have been so touched by 
the likeness to his own son of a youthful adversary, 
named Atsumori, that he spared his life and connived 
at his escape from the battle of Ichi-no-tani, a famous 
valley near Kobe. This theme had to be embroidered 
with improbable episodes and extravagant actions to 
satisfy public taste. Accordingly, Kumagaya saves 
Atsumori's life in a supremely sensational manner. In 
obedience to secret orders from his feudal;; lord, 
Yoshitsune, he induces his son Kojiro to enter 
Atsumori's castle by cutting down a score of guards 
single-handed, to change clothes with Atsumori, to 
personate Atsumori so as to deceive both friend and 
foe, and finally to be killed by his own father in single 
combat, that the world may be absolutely convinced of 
Atsumori's death. While the plot requires that most 
of the characters in the piece should be mystified, it is 
important that the audience should not be mystified, 
and this twofold object is secured by the ingenious co- 
operation of stage and cage. While father and son, 
mounted on terrific black and white chargers, inter- 
change threats and insults so as to blind their fellow- 
actors, the chorus expresses their real feelings of 
anguish and affection in such pathetic strains that the 
audience cannot fail to grasp the situation. But con- 
cealment of the truth from the other characters leads 
to more entanglements. Atsumori's mother, the Lady 
Wistaria, believing her son to be dead, pays a visit to 
the murderers wife, and discovering in her a feudal 
dependent, insinuates that her obvious duty is to assist 
in her husband's assassination when he shall return. 



78 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

When Kumagaya comes home, his position, between 
the woman who thinks he has killed her son and the 
woman whose son he has really killed, is made more 
embarrassing by the fact that Kajiwara, an enemy who 
suspects the truth, is listening at the door. His fluent 
and inconsistent explanations would be superfluous if 
he might show the dead mans head, which he carries 
with him in a box ; but that must, of course, only be 
revealed at the last moment to Yoshitsune as a proof 
of his loyal obedience, when he will be praised for his 
loyal devotion and retire to a Buddhist monastery, 
muttering " Life is a hollow dream." The piece is 
a great deal more complicated than might be sup- 
posed from the foregoing analysis. Subsidiary pea- 
sants, beggars, and woodcutters turn out at opportune 
moments to be Taira or Minamoto warriors and court- 
ladies in disguise. The first three acts are occupied 
with a kind of prologue, which has only two points of 
contact with the main Atsumori motif : first, the cha- 
racters, though entirely different, belong to the same 
historic period ; and, secondly, their business is also to 
glorify parental murder. 

Casuists have urged that to sacrifice another's life, 
even though that other be one's own child, is less 
heroic than to sacrifice oneself. But that, too, is 
common in the jidaimono, or historical plays, which 
far outnumber the rest in popularity. Not to speak of 
the forty-seven ronin, whose simultaneous suicide is 
the subject of more than fifty dramas, and whose vene- 
rated tombs at Sengakuji are yet covered with poems 
and visiting-cards every New Year's Day, I suppose 
one drama in ten contains a case of hara-kiri, or 
" happy dispatch." The actor writes a letter, generally 
in blood, to explain why his honour requires self- 



POPULAR PLAYS 79 

slaughter, and then with great deliberation draws a 
knife across his stomach, until his admirably twitching 
limbs are covered with gore. At this point the 
squeamish foreigner is apt to leave the theatre, but 
the Japanese babies do not blench at blood, and are 
taught by such sights from their earliest years that 
superb indifference to death, that supreme attachment 
to honour, which no other nation displays to the same 
degree. Hara-kiri cannot be approved by utilitarians, 
but it implies a higher pitch of heroism than you find 
in a British melodrama, where the hero and villain are 
probably engaged in selfish rivalry for the hand of the 
same young woman, and merely differ in the choice of 
means to gratify the same desire. I find an exquisite 
instance of Japanese subtlety in the mingled ferocity 
and devotion of their popular plays, which please at 
once the devil and the angel cohabiting the human 
heart. If the devil gloat over blood-shedding, the 
angel exults in death for an ideal. The devil holds 
the knife and the angel rams it in. Nor must you 
suppose that the playgoers who revel in such incidents 
regard them as part and parcel of an effete morality. 
Every few years the partisans of Western ethics are 
startled by similar tragedies. The assassins or would- 
be assassins of Viscount Mori in 1887, of Count Okuma 
in 1889, of the Czarevitch in 1891, of Li Hung Chang 
in 1895, were prepared to pay with their own lives 
for what they deemed dishonourable concessions to 
foreigners. The young girl, Yuko Hatakeyama, who 
cut her throat in expiation of the outrage offered to the 
Czarevitch ; the young wife of Lieutenant Asada, who, 
learning of his death on the battlefield, slew herself 
before his portrait, that she might follow him ; the forty 
soldiers, who took their own lives because the Govern- 



So JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

ment gave up Liaotung at the bidding of Russia, 
France, and Germany — all these were as widely 
praised and honoured by their fellow-countrymen as 
Kumagaya or Nakamitsu. 

Next in popularity to the historical are the social 
plays (sewamono), of which the main topic is love. 
This love, however, has nothing in common with the 
well-regulated affections which dominate our middle- 
class comedy from " Our Boys" to " Sweet Lavender," 
and culminate in the addition of two or three conventional 
couples to suburban villadom. Domestic happiness 
having been arranged for most young folk by their 
elders, neither courtship nor marriage (if the former 
could be said to exist) presented material for dra- 
matic treatment. The heroine is either a geisha or a 
courtesan, exposed by her profession to the worst 
caprice of passion and of fortune. In neither case is 
she necessarily repulsive or even reprehensible. On 
the contrary, she is often held up to sympathy as a 
model of filial devotion, having sold her virtue for a 
certain period to save her parents from beggary. 
Public opinion is still so much more Confucian than 
Christian among Japanese peasants, that not only does 
a father incur no odium for selling his daughter, but 
she would be regarded in many districts as wickedly 
unfilial if she objected to be sold. It is true that by 
decrees added to Japanese law in 1875 and 1896 such 
sale is forbidden : girls are no longer bought ; they 
are hired. But during the Yedo period, whose morals 
are mostly reflected in such pieces, the famous oiran 
sama or lady-courtesan was a very dazzling figure, 
while the humble joro was at least regarded with pity. 
If we put aside for the moment Western feeling on 
this subject, it is clear that no romance could be more 



POPULAR PLAYS 81 

deeply pathetic than that of a duteous heart fluttering 
behind the gilded bars of self-imposed shame and 
responding to the generous affection of a liberating 
lover. The entourage of spies and gaolers made 
escape no easy thing : thus plenty of dangerous ad- 
venture would diversify the plot. The nimble-wittsd 
theatre-goer loves intrigue, and follows hero and 
heroine through an imbroglio of ruses and disguises 
and machinations which it would be tedious to describe. 
Again let me pay tribute to the ingenuity of the didactic 
dramatist, who illustrates a lesson in filial unselfishness 
with pictures of attractive wickedness. Few scenes 
could surpass in beauty the luxurious lupanar, with its 
troop of richly robed Delilahs. Drury Lane has pro- 
duced nothing more spectacular or more sensational 
than the meretricious, murderous dramas of this class. 
Less numerous, but of great interest to the student, 
are Oikemono, or plays " connected with the private 
troubles of some illustrious family." These would 
obviously strengthen feudal ties, and some have con- 
siderable merit. The first piece I saw in a Japanese 
theatre was founded on the legend (told at length in 
Mr. Mitford's " Tales of Old Japan ") of the Nabe- 
shima cat. One of the lords of Nabeshima had the 
misfortune to marry a species of vampire-cat, or rather 
his wife was possessed by one. While the daimyo and 
his friends keep watch, the wife retires to bed, and 
soon the shadow of a cat's head is silhouetted on the 
paper lantern near her couch. Caterwauling is heard : 
the watchers, armed with swords, rush in and stab the 
cat-wife, whose death ends the play. Life in the court 
of a feudal lord during the Tokugawa shogunate is 
most vividly portrayed in " Kagamiyama-kokyo-no- 
nishiki," which may be regarded as the Japanese 



82 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

counterpart of Scribe's " Bataille de Femmes," except 
that the ruling passion is not love, but loyalty. It 
deals with a feud between two court ladies. Iwafugi, 
old and ugly, is jealous of the favour extended to 
Onoye by the daimyo's daughter, who has entrusted 
to her care a consecrated statue of Buddha and a box 
of precious perfume. Having caused these to be 
stolen and concealed with a straw-sandal of her own, 
Iwafugi accuses her young rival of trying to fasten 
the theft upon her, strikes her in the face with the 
sandal, and leaves the mortified Onoye no remedy 
for insult but suicide. But Ohatsu, a devoted maid 
of the latter, avenges her mistress by stabbing Iwafugi 
to death, and is rewarded with promotion to high rank. 
Thus the supreme merit of loyalty at any cost is once 
more vindicated. This piece is interesting, because it 
furnishes the veteran actor, Danjuro, with a striking 
female part — that of Iwafugi — and proves that the 
subjection of women in domestic matters by no means 
robbed them of spirit and individuality. The rash 
inference that Confucian domesticity must reduce 
women to the level of a slave or a doll is disproved 
by the heroic figures which are so frequent in historical, 
social, and court-family drama. 

Such, then, is the popular play, dear to both actors 
and public, who value Western imports of a material 
kind, but prefer their own moral and social ideals to 
those of foreigners. Railways and ironclads may be 
readily adopted, but not the New Testament or the 
New Woman. Yet, setting such vexed questions 
aside, and taking the neutral ground of art, it is clear 
that the pieces which I have described are inferior 
even to the archaic No. Let them be as imaginative, 
as patriotic, as lofty as you like, they remain stirring 



POPULAR PLAYS 83 

spectacles, without cohesion, depth, or unity. They 
are fascinating pictures of a deeply loved and daily 
vanishing past, but drama of a high sort they are not. 
Is there no movement, it will be asked, among the 
more educated classes to raise the standard of art, 
to create a drama which shall appeal less to the eye 
and more to the intelligence ? 

Yes ; there are two forces at work which deserve 
credit for their energy in what is almost an impos- 
sible task until the conditions of theatrical represen- 
tation shall be radically altered. How is the action 
to be compressed within reasonable limits when the 
audience demand a whole day's entertainment? How 
is closer realism to be achieved by the actor when the 
never silent orchestra compels him to pitch his voice 
in a falsetto key ? How are women's parts to be ade- 
quately rendered so long as men monopolise the stage ? 
How are women to take their places when the size of 
the theatre and the length of the performance put a 
prohibitive strain on their physical powers ? And how 
is the author to complete a masterpiece when manager, 
actor, and musician claim the right to interpolate 
scenes, business, and melody for the irrelevant amuse- 
ment of the uncritical ? These questions must be 
answered before reform can make headway. In the 
meantime, a glance at what reformers have tried to 
accomplish is only due to their laudable endeavour. 

Rather more than ten years ago, when enthusiasm 
for Western things was at its height, a species of 
independent theatre, calling itself the Soshi-Shibai, 
was started with a loud flourish of trumpets in Tokyo. 
The promoters were soshi (ex-students), who, as 
actors or authors, or both, proclaimed their intention 
of revolutionising the stage and informing it with nine- 



84 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

teenth-century culture. They began, as such societies 
generally begin, with translations, and by dramatising 
the romances of the elder Dumas succeeded for a 
time in attracting. " The Three Musketeers " and 
"Monte Cristo " were spectacular enough to please. 
But when it came to producing original work, their 
will was found to exceed their capacity. Without 
enough money or experience to make a sustained 
effort, they kindled a flame which soon flickered out. 
Mr. Kawakami, as I have already stated, won a great 
success by dramatising the more striking incidents of 
the war with China. He visited Port Arthur and 
supplied himself with photographs of many varieties, 
so that, at any rate, his play was realistically mounted. 
How far its structure was in advance of less up-to- 
date pieces I cannot say. If it at all resembled his 
adaptation of " Round the World in Eighty Days," I 
fear it was no more than a series of tableaux. But no 
production on strictly European lines could command 
an intelligent, much less a sympathetic, reception from 
playgoers unacquainted with European life. In the 
summer of 1898 Mr. Osada, whose models are Pari- 
sian, presented his compatriots with a version of (i Le 
monde ou Ton s'ennuie." It will be remembered that 
the climax of that amusing comedy is reached when a 
young diplomat is discovered kissing his wife in a 
dark conservatory by the scandalised guests at a 
French chateau. Now, the Tokyo tradesman has 
never kissed anybody, and would not incommode his 
wife with sentimental attention. He was merely mys- 
tified by this queer illustration of barbarian habit, and 
returned with relief to the contemplation of his politely 
blood-stained ancestors. 

The most promising path of improvement would 



POPULAR PLAYS 85 

seem to be that pursued by Mr. Tsuboiichi and 
Mr. Fukuchi, who continue to write plays on episodes 
in their own history, but strive to avoid the extra- 
vagance and unreality of their predecessors. Mr. 
Tsuboiichi, who was well known as a critic and novelist 
before he turned playwright, invented the term mugen- 
gekki or " dream-play " in ridicule of such wildly 
improbable incidents as disfigure " The Tale of the 
Sapling of Ichi-no-tani." I have not seen his own 
drama, the " Maki no Kati " (1897), which deals with 
the turbulent thirteenth century, but Mr. Aston 
discerns in it " careful workmanship and gratifying 
freedom from extravagance," in spite of "several 
murders and two hara-kiri by women." Of Mr. 
Fukuchi's work I can write with some confidence, 
having been privileged on many occasions to discuss it 
with him. He is recognised as the leading Japanese 
playwright, and has produced about thirty plays during 
the last ten years. He has been engaged for some 
time on translations of " Hamlet" and " Othello," but 
has no idea of staging them, for reasons which will be 
presently explained. Though anxious to modernise 
the drama by introducing less bloodshed and more 
careful study of character, he finds modern Japan 
unsuited to dramatic treatment. The typical advocate 
of progress, who dresses and talks like a foreigner, 
takes little interest in his own arts and antiquities, 
being absorbed in politics or money-making. He has 
neither the picturesque nor heroic qualities which a 
dramatist postulates, and is therefore rejected by 
Mr. Fukuchi in his search for material. A serious 
obstacle to reform lies in the ignorance of actors and 
the indifference of the upper classes. While the 
former too often lack the erudition to appreciate and 



86 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

interpret a scholarly reproduction of antique habit and 
speech, the latter are only beginning to discard their 
aristocratic prejudice against the theatre, compelling 
the author to write down to the level of his middle and 
lower class audience. But better education and more 
democratic ideals are beginning to tell. The reception 
of " Kasuga-no-Tsubone " ("The Lady-in- Waiting of 
Kasuga ") — one of Mr. Fukuchi's finest plays — marked 
a most creditable advance in public judgment. 

Here was a piece entirely devoid of sensational 
incident, depending on neither love nor death nor 
abnormal sacrifice for its appeal, but narrating the 
discharge of public duty by a high-spirited woman 
in the face of ceaseless intrigue and danger. It brings 
out the noblest side of Japanese statesmanship, the far- 
seeing wisdom and patience of the ruler, together with 
the perseverance and devotion of the ruled. The poli- 
tical and personal strands of interest are so cleverly com- 
bined, that for once the grey fabric of governmental 
policy is sufficiently embroidered with a pattern in gold 
of intersecting character : the scarlet thread is scarcely 
missed. Briefly this is the tale. Iyeyasu, having com- 
pleted his work of equipping Japan with a durable 
constitution, retired to Suruga, and, leaving the sho- 
gunate in Hidetada's hands, continued to take private 
measures for the future welfare of the State. One of 
these was the education of his grandson, Taketiyo 
(better known as Iyemitsu), whom he wished to be 
trained in the severest school of military discipline. 
For this purpose he chose the Lady of Kasuga, whose 
husband, Inaba Sado-no-Kami, was a ronin, having 
been dispossessed of title and estates by Hideyoshi. 
The task was beset with difficulty. First the wife 
of Hidetada, and then that Shogun himself, lost no 



POPULAR PLAYS 87 

occasion of thwarting her efforts and of putting forward 
Kunityo, a younger prince, whose gentler and more 
refined manner gained him many partisans at Court. 
In despair of winning her cause, the Lady of Kasuga 
fled to Suruga in the garb of a pilgrim and begged 
Iyeyasu to decide between the rival candidates. The 
old man thereupon returned to Yedo and subjected 
the brothers to searching tests of both intellectual and 
physical capacity. In all these the more Spartan pupil 
of the samurais wife proved victorious. Up to this 
point the plot does not differ very materially from 
ordinary histories of disputed succession, but the last 
act is peculiarly illustrative of woman's status during 
the Tokugawa rdgime. Asked to choose her own 
reward for service so admirably rendered, the pre- 
ceptress of Iyemitsu solicits the restoration to her 
husband of his rank and estates ; but he, regarding 
such a proposal as wounding to his honour, proceeds to 
divorce her. Iyeyasu then offers to make the wife a 
daimyo, but she refuses, on the ground that to accept 
would be to still further dishonour her husband. 
In the end Inaba is reinstated for having exhibited a 
proper spirit of pride and independence, while the 
Lady of Kasuga resumes her place at his side. 

On the lines of this play, in which conflict of 
scheming interests is substituted for hand-to-hand 
fighting, while a clearly developed story replaces the 
old olla podrida of loosely connected scenes, there is 
great hope of raising popular drama from a somewhat 
crude condition to the level of serious art. It has 
never aimed at merely amusing the populace ; it has 
always professed to instruct them. In the hands of 
Mr. Fukuchi and men of his stamp its patriotic bias 
need not be weakened, while its artistic worth will be 



38 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

much increased. But it is by no means likely that 
European drama will affect its substance, however 
largely it may influence the form. On this point 
Mr. Fukuchi is as emphatic as Mr. Danjuro. Shake- 
speare is impossible. His teaching would be at least 
as pernicious in its effect on feminine morals and the 
structure of society as that of Ibsen is considered by 
conservative moralists in this country. We have seen 
that the restriction of woman's sphere to loving and 
serving does not necessarily rob her of courage or 
resolution. Many foreigners resident in Japan have 
not hesitated to declare their conviction that the 
" childish, confiding, sweet Japanese girl" is superior 
to the " calculating, penetrating, diamond-hard Ameri- 
can woman," the consequence and nemesis of masculine 
idolatry. A little reflection will show how shocking 
the heroines of Shakespeare must seem to admirers 
of the former type. You have Rosalind, swaggering 
shamelessly in male attire ; Beatrice, cutting such 
coarse quips as Benedick himself would scarcely ven- 
ture upon to-day in a London club ; Portia, masquer- 
ading in cap and gown, and exposing her lover to 
dishonour by snatching his betrothal-ring ; Juliet and 
Jessica, selfishly disregardful of their parents' wishes ; 
and Katherine the shrew, whose violent vulgarity 
fortunately could not be translated into so polite a 
language as Japanese. As for "The Merry Wives 
of Windsor," should the Soshi-Shibai ever dare to 
present it, I feel sure that the Tokyo counterpart of 
Mr. Clement Scott would denounce their action in 
such terms as these : 

" This disgusting representation of the most loath- 
some of all Shakespeare's plays was unutterably offen- 
sive. So foul a concoction ought never to have been 



POPULAR PLAYS 89 

allowed to disgrace the boards of a Japanese theatre. 
The lewd maunderings of Sir John Falstaff, the licen- 
tious jesting of Mistress Ford, Mistress Page, and Mis- 
tress Quickly must excite reprobation in all but those 
lovers of prurience and dabblers in impropriety who are 
eager to gratify their illicit tastes under the pretence 
of art. Ninety-seven per cent, of the people who 
laughed to see the fat knight smothered in a basket of 
dirty linen are nasty-minded people. Outside a silly 
clique there is not the slightest interest in the Eliza- 
bethan humbug or all his works." 



II 

Many foreigners, unable to catch the meaning of what 
is to them a rather tedious dumb-show, pay short and 
perfunctory visits to the theatre. But this is not wise, 
for, even should the play lie outside their comprehen- 
sion, the native playgoers are both affable to accost 
and interesting to study. They are seated in lidless 
boxes lined with matting, in parties of four and five, 
on the ground, on slightly elevated seats at the side, 
or in a long gallery surrounding the house. A box in 
the first position will cost about eight shillings, in the 
second about nine, in the last eleven. The higher you 
climb the more you pay, except in the Oikomi ("driven- 
in-place "), where the "gods" are crowded together in 
a grated pen, from which little can be seen or heard ; 
but then the price is no more than sixpence, or a 
penny an act if they cannot afford to witness the 
whole performance. This will consist of two long 
plays lasting about four hours each, with an inter- 
mediary tableau, which is generally the most beauti- 
fully mounted of all. During the day every one eats 
and drinks and smokes. The women take tea, the 
men sakd, while the babies loudly and numerously 
imbibe milk. Between the acts, when the handsome 



POPULAR PLAYS 91 

curtains (often gifts from admiring associations to a 
popular artist) descend, the audience strolls about the 
undoba, a large enclosure surrounding the theatre, in 
which the stall-keepers sell refreshments, photographs, 
toys, and all kinds of ornamental knick-knacks. You 
escape the headache engendered by the gas and close 
atmosphere of a Western play-house, for the sliding 
shutters that form the outer walls of the upper storey 
can be opened at will to admit currents of cool air. 
The best day to go is Monday, for that is the pay-day 
of the geisha, whom you will see in almost as many 
costumes as the actor, since she loves to return to 
an adjacent tea-house at frequent intervals for the 
purpose of renewing her charms of apparel and com- 
plexion. 

Tea-houses surround a theatre as jackals a lion ; 
their co-operation is indispensable to the success of an 
indoor picnic. Besides, it is not considered genteel to 
apply for seats at the door. Your only chance of a 
good place is to secure the kind offices of a tea-house 
proprietor, who will provide attendance and refresh- 
ments, besides taking charge of your watch, purse, and 
any other article of value. The Tokyo pickpocket 
is very adroit, and a constant patron of dramatic 
art. Formerly the entertainment began at dawn, but 
the Government, which exercises paternal supervision 
over popular amusements, has now limited its length 
to eight or nine hours, so that, if you arrive at half- 
past ten, you may be sure of seeing the programme 
played out until seven or eight in the evening. 
Having left your shoes at the tea-house in exchange 
for a wooden check and sandals, you will be con- 
ducted to a box and presented by a polite attendant 
with cushion, programme, tobacco-box, tea, and sweet 



92 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

cakes, with luncheon to follow. Now, at last, you are 
at liberty to observe the antics of the actors. 

As you cannot understand what they say, you notice 
more particularly how they say it. At first their 
elocution will seem both painful and artificial : the 
tones are too shrill or too gruff, equally removed from 
the diapason of natural speech. But that is because 
the traditional samisen, a three-stringed guitar, follows 
the performer like a curse from start to finish. Unless 
he pitched his voice above or below its notes, he could 
not be heard. Even so, the author complains that his 
words receive inadequate attention from either player 
or playgoer, for the former relies chiefly on pose and 
facial expression to score his points, while the latter 
obediently admires the methods of acting to which he 
has always been accustomed. It cannot be denied 
that these methods are effective. I have seen the 
feminine part of the audience infected with such violent 
emotion by the agonised play of mobile features as to 
rush for relief to the " Tear- Room," where they can 
cry to heart's content without inconveniencing more 
stoical neighbours. 

Though the actor's tone is disagreeably unnatural, 
his articulation is both clean-cut and sonorous. The 
syllables crack on the ear like pistol-shots, sharply 
distinct. I imagine that he is seldom inaudible. It 
is a great pity that convention, if not law, still forbids 
the appearance of men and women on the same stage, 
since the mimicry of one sex by the other, triumphantly 
deceptive in other particulars, breaks down at the 
point of vocal imitation. The eye is tricked, but not 
the ear. Yet peculiar attention is given to the train- 
ing and discipline of onnagata, or impersonators of 
female parts. Formerly they were not only given the 



POPULAR PLAYS 93 

outward semblance of women by every contrivance 
which the costumier and coiffeur could supply, but 
were required to spend their lives from childhood in 
feminine costume and society, that their masculine pro- 
clivities might be as far as possible obliterated. Even 
now their names stand first on the programme, their 
dressing-rooms are locked on the inside, their influence 
is paramount in the Actors' Guild. The supremacy 
of Mr. Danjuro is due in no small degree to his ability 
to play both male and female characters with equal 
Mat. Notwithstanding every precaution and privi- 
lege, the actor cannot acquire the intonation of an 
actress. His reedy falsetto is a poor parody of the 
musical tones in which Japanese women converse, 
and the loss to a public which has never been caressed 
by Sara Bernhardt's golden voice or thrilled by 
Mrs. Patrick Campbell's may be sympathetically 
imagined. But, though Tokyo has no actresses, the 
Women's Theatre in Kyoto, in which are no actors, 
might seem a partial set-off to this deficiency. In 
fact, however, though the women are extremely clever 
in simulating the gait and gestures of men — if I had 
not been taken behind the scenes, I should have 
believed myself in the wrong theatre — they are hope- 
lessly handicapped by physical weakness. The stage 
is so enormous, and the performance so long, that an 
artist may reckon on walking ten miles in the course 
of the day, while the voice is severely taxed by the 
prolonged stridency of declamation. 

While the stage-woman, adroitly personated, is 
often tolerable, the stage-child is an intolerable inflic- 
tion. Convention has decreed that it shall shriek 
all its lines on one high monotonous note, and shriek 
it does. There is no attempt at variety of tone 



94 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

or naturalness of expression. When a steam-launch 
emits similar sounds, we condone in a machine what 
we resent in a human being. It is simply an ear- 
splitting automaton. One turns with relief to watch 
the children in the audience, who are evidently the 
spoiled darlings of their relations. But, indeed, the 
child seems never snubbed or thwarted in Japan. At 
the termination of every act, while the curtains fall or 
are drawn together, there is a scurry of tiny feet up 
and down the parallel hana-michi (the flower-walks 
which divide the auditorium), and, if some audacious 
little intruders rush upon the stage itself, they are 
greeted with indulgent laughter. 

Perhaps the chief obstacle to illusion, and the one 
most easily remedied as regards scenic accessories, is 
the enormous area of the stage. It is far too large 
to be enclosed between "wings" and "flies," while 
the custom of exit and entry along the flower-walks 
transgresses our cardinal principle of separating those 
who act from those who look on. As a rule, the 
supposed locality of the piece, be it palace or temple 
or battle-field, is a wood-and-cardboard island in a sea 
of bare boards, of which the circumference nearly 
corresponds with that of a revolving section of the 
stage, twenty or thirty feet in diameter, which turns 
on lignum-vitse wheels. While one scene is being 
enacted, a second is being prepared behind, and at a 
given signal the eccyclema is whirled round, carrying 
away one set of actors and bringing on their suc- 
cessors. Do not suppose, however, that realistic 
effects are outside the range of the Meiji-za or Kabuki- 
za management. I remember a melodrama, written 
by a lieutenant in the Japanese navy, in which the 
hero, though encumbered by a heavy piece of ord- 



POPULAR PLAYS 95 

nance hoisted on his shoulders, cut down eight assail- 
ants in turn in spite of a terrific storm, which drenched 
the company with real rain and blew down real trees, 
planted that afternoon ! 

The actor is a more important personage than the 
author in most people's eyes. Until this relation 
shall be reversed, the Thespian cart is not likely to 
leave the rut in which it moves. Meanwhile, a glance 
at their respective positions may fitly conclude this 
essay. Before Meiji, the present era of enlightenment, 
the mummer was treated as a rogue and vagabond. 
He was regarded with contempt as a koyamono, or 
"occupant of a hut," and placed on a par with men- 
dicants. In public places he was obliged to wear 
a mebakari-zukin or hood, which covered head and 
face all but the eyes, and was only allowed to frequent 
particular restaurants. Unless he belonged to one of 
the half-dozen theatrical families who ruled the stage 
with oligarchic exclusiveness, monopolising the secrets 
of the profession, the power to admit novices, and the 
right to play particular parts, his progress was slow. 
Beginning with the horse's leg (uma no askz), a limb 
of the pantomimic charger, which was indispensable 
to historic drama, he was obliged to buy or insinuate 
his way by adoption to more important parts before 
he could earn either fame or fortune. Nowadays all 
that is changed. Free competition rules. The public 
is his only patron. Without training or payment of 
fees to the Ichikawa, the Onoye, or the Nakamura, a 
successful ddbutant can march by his own merits into 
wealth and popularity. As he trends the flower-walks, 
fans, purses, embroidered pouches will be showered at 
his feet ; to his dressing-room will come love-letters 
innumerable, for the Japanese " matinee girl" is very 



96 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

susceptible ; in public he will be pointed out, the idol 
of the masses ; his crest will be on the tortoise-shell or 
ivory pin, which adorns the high coiffure of the stage- 
struck musumd ; finally, should he ever reach the head 
of his profession, he may hope to make as much as 
^5000 in four weeks, far surpassing the modest in- 
come of a prime minister or an archbishop. 

But the author, instead of ruling the kingdom which 
he creates, is in most cases no more than a theatrical 
employ 6. In fact, the term "create" can only be 
used with much qualification, for the genesis of a play 
is curiously and multifariously planned. First, the 
manager sends for the author, and indicates the subject 
and period which he desires to form the bases of a 
drama ; the author prepares and submits two or three 
drafts, from which the best is selected ; then the cast 
is appointed, and the chief actors are consulted about 
their parts, which of course are modified to suit their 
suggestions ; then the composer is called in, and, if 
the musical setting should lead to new alterations in 
the libretto, the author has no choice but to submit. 
When plays have to be constructed in this way, you 
cannot expect them to have any more artistic value 
than a London pantomime or "musical comedy." 
Nor has the author the satisfaction of salving the 
wounds to "artistic conscience" with consolatory gold. 
On the first run of a piece (the season is never longer 
than four or five weeks at a time) he may receive ^"20 ; 
a revival may bring him in £\o more, a provincial tour 
yet another £\o. On the whole, he will be lucky 
to make j£$o, while the leading actor makes ^5000. 
But then the audiences do not pay their money for the 
opportunity of solving historical problems or appreciat- 
ing intellectual artistry : their object is simply to feast 




The Heroine of a Problem-play. 



POPULAR PLAYS 97 

eyes and ears on a sensational pageant, in which to 
them the actor is king. They do not bestow a thought 
on the power behind the throne, chained there by 
ignorance and convention. Plays are sometimes pub- 
lished, but their sale is insignificant. The aristocracy, 
both of birth and intellect, hold too much aloof from a 
plebeian amusement, which under higher conditions 
might become a fruitful and immortal art. When I 
think of Mr. Fukuchi, fettered by public taste, that 
stupidest of Jupiters, to the Caucasus of picturesque 
melodrama, while vulturine actors peck at his brains, 
I wish that a chorus of Oceanides, winged ideas and 
ideals from Paris, from London, and Christiania — could 
cross the seas to Tokyo and liberate Prometheus. 



GEISHA AND CHERRY-BLOSSOM 



GEISHA AND CHERRY-BLOSSOM 

Nothing is more difficult to eradicate than a British 
misconception of foreign defects. French lubricity, 
German clumsiness, Russian cruelty, are quite as much 
articles of faith on this side of the Channel as Albion's 
perfidy on the other. Similarly, it is useless to con- 
trovert the popular opinion that the geisha is generally 
pretty and always improper. Her detractors have 
seen an English opera bearing her name and traducing 
her character : it is enough ; they know. Neverthe- 
less, this opinion is founded on imperfect knowledge, 
and requires much modification before it can be 
received as even partially true. Etymologically, a 
geisha is an accomplished person ; socially, she is an 
entertainer, who has been trained from the age of 
seven or eight to dance or sing for the amusement of 
guests at a dinner-party. Probably her parents have 
leased her for a certain number of years to a teacher, 
who undertakes to board and train her, to procure 
engagements and to chaperon her, to pay a fixed sum 
to her family as well as a tax to the Government, in 
return for all of which a sufficient recompense is 
assured by the fees which a talented artist is able to 
earn. Less frequently she lives at home and obtains 



102 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

engagements through an agent, who receives only a 
percentage of her gains. The training is continuous 
and severe. To a foreigner the dancing will appear 
graceful but monotonous ; it has none of the free, 
vigorous motion which we associate with the term : 
on the other hand, for the connoisseur each gesture 
is significant, each pose symbolic. To appreciate 
many of the " dances," requiring hours of patient 
rehearsal, it would be necessary to catch continual 
allusion to poems, legends, and flowers, with which 
the treasure-house of Japanese memory is stored. 
Those who would deny the applicability of the term 
" music " to " the strummings and squealings of 
Orientals," would yet admit that both the koto and 
samisen (the stringed instruments most in vogue) are 
not to be mastered without constant practice, and the 
irregular rhythm of the songs, with their abrupt inter- 
vals and capricious repetitions, cannot be easy to 
render until the voice has attained extreme flexi- 
bility. On the mysteries of Japanese music, however, 
seeing that the best authorities are at variance, only 
an expert dare pronounce judgment. To return to 
the question of the social status of the geisha, I 
should say that it corresponds more exactly with that 
of a Parisian actress than of an Athenian hetaira. 
Convention having banished the actress from the 
Japanese stage, the geisha takes her place as the 
natural recipient of masculine homage. She is much 
courted, and sometimes makes a brilliant match. There 
are a large number who make the profession an ex- 
cuse for attracting rich admirers, just as the name of 
" actress" in more Puritan climes will cover a multi- 
tude of sins. But a professional courtesan she is not : 
her favours are not always for sale to the highest 



GEISHA AND CHERRY-BLOSSOM 103 

bidder. When her short reign is over at the age of 
twenty-five, she generally imparts to a younger gene- 
ration the secrets of professional success. Among 
these the art of conversation is not the least important. 
To parry indiscreet advances and to bandy compli- 
ments enter as much into her role as the playing of 
" Kitsune ken" or "fox-forfeit," in which no little 
agility is needed to represent at the right moment 
the fox, the man, and the gun on facile fingers. 
Childish of course the geisha is, like most of her 
younger countrywomen ; sometimes dangerous and 
fickle, as her popular nickname of " Nekko," the cat, 
testifies ; but virtuous as well, in many cases, where 
she has enough independence and strength of character 
to resist the flattering importunity of fame's innumer- 
able suitors. 

If one of these aspire to win her affection, or merely 
to make her acquaintance, he has many advantages 
over the callow youths who wait, like lackeys, at the 
stage-door of a Western theatre. He is spared the 
preliminary purgatory of appealing letters, of suppli- 
catory presents, which may easily fail to secure the 
desired access. He is not forced to share with a crowd 
of jealous or indifferent strangers the bitter joy of her 
nightly apotheosis, when her smiles and wiles must be 
lavished in promiscuous appeal. He has merely to 
dine at the tea-house with which she, or her employer, 
has made a mutually advantageous contract : there, 
on sufficient notice, she will arrive with her duenna, 
ready to perform, if need be, for his delight alone, 
while the semi-privacy of the entertainment affords 
him every opportunity of pressing his suit. As a rule, 
however, the geisha performs in parties of two, or 
three, or more, according to the number of guests. 



io 4 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

Often the convivial character of the occasion tends to 
lower the standard of art involved ; indeed, such 
feasts are apt to degenerate into orgies. To realise 
the aesthetic possibilities of an art which is only at its 
lowest bacchanalian, we must quit the tea-house, that 
temple of the senses, and seek the sacred city of 
Kyoto, where palace and monastery raise, like antique 
junks, their majestic or quaintly carven heads above 
white waves of cherry-blossom. . . . 

It is April. While English weather is struggling in 
spasmodic furies of wind and rain to escape the clutch 
of winter, here the enfranchised spring creeps, fairy- 
like, from plain to height on rosy sandals. First 
Tokyo, whose hundred miles of unpaved thoroughfare 
fatigue the foot and offend the eye with naked dreari- 
ness, is clothed with draperies of fleecy pink. The 
spacious parks of Ueno and Shiba are thronged with 
gazing multitudes, who ride or saunter all day long 
through flower-encumbered avenues. At night the 
river-reaches of Mukojima are packed with pleasure- 
boats, whose lanterns gleam like fire-flies beneath the 
pale mass of overhanging bloom. Yamaguchi San, 
who by trade is a rice merchant but by nature a poet, 
has written in the intervals of business, which is not 
brisk at this time of year, a little sheaf of poems, each 
consisting of three lines, which run perpendicularly 
down strips of iridescent rice-paper. So far as their 
purport can be construed into grosser forms of verse, I 
take it to be as follows : 

" Put on your brightest kimono^ 
O Hani San, and let us go ! 

" Bring ivory chop-sticks, lacquer-cup, 
And rice and wine, that we may sup. 



GEISHA AND CHERRY-BLOSSOM 105 

"On honourable trees is set 
A rosy-petalled coronet. 

" The shine of day, the sheen of night, 
Are drowned in cherry-blossom-light. 

" We have no need of sun or star 
To revel at Mukojima." 

But Mukojima is no more to be compared with 
Yoshino than Rosherville with Stonehenge. The trees 
which line the broad Sumidagawa are beautiful but 
modern ; their festal Roughs are familiarised and a 
little vulgarised by the loud merry-making of cockney 
crowds; all this shouting and laughing recall a bar- 
barian's bank-holiday. Far westward, on the ridges of 
Yoshino, where no modern city disturbs the silence of 
the imperial tumuli, encircled by a low granite fence 
and enclosing dusty gold relics of dead kings, grow 
the Thousand Cherry-Trees of immemorial renown. 
Motoori sang of them ; Hiroshigi painted them ; Jimmu 
Tenno, the first of the Mikados, in his mausoleum 
fifteen miles away, is hardly more venerable than they. 
Every year pilgrims pass through the bronze gateway 
of the Zo-o-do Temple and climb the mountain side ta 
rest beneath the canopy of tender, billowy blossom, 
which broods like an ever-renascent cloud of beauty 
above the Yamato plain, endeared by thirteen centuries 
of history and romance. Many pleasure-seekers mix 
with the white-robed pilgrims, who belong for the 
most part to distant villages and look on religion as an 
excellent excuse for change of interest and change of 
scene. Heedless of theology and harassed by no 
conviction of original sin, they return, like happy 
children from a picnic, with eyes brightened by the sea. 
of colour and spirits clarified by pure mountain air. 



106 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

Soon the green hills are carpeted with flakes of soft 
flowerage ; the brief splendour of the Thousand Trees 
is over ; the scattered hamlets and holy mounds resume 
their ordinary quietude. 

At Kyoto the cult of the national flower culminates 
in an annual celebration, the Miyako-odori, a spec- 
tacular ballet with choric interludes. For many years 
the same poet, an old resident, has been assigned 
the task of composing appropriate lyrics, in which 
the glories of some historic or legendary hero blend 
with the praises of the blushing sakura. Musicians, 
painters, dancers, are engaged to elaborate with aux- 
iliary sound, design, and movement the series of dream- 
pictures which his fancy has evoked. But words and 
notes are really subsidiary to the dancing : the tale of 
the poet is chiefly told by the winding feet and waving 
arms, the ever-changing pose and mimicry, of the 
most highly trained geisha in Japan. These number 
as many as seventy, of whom eighteen combine the 
functions of choir and orchestra, now chanting, now 
accompanying on drum and mandoline the statuesque 
or processional development of the choregraphic 
theme. The Hanami-Koji, specially set apart for 
such representations, is not easy to find. Though 
within the precincts of the theatrical quarter, it stands 
a little apart from the other houses, such as the 
<jion-za Theatre, and is far less capacious ; in fact, it 
bears about the same proportion to its huge, banner- 
flaunting brethren as the smaller Queen's Hall to 
Drury Lane. The structure, too, is entirely different 
from theirs. Three sides of the building are reserved 
for the performers. Instead of the parallel hana-michi, 
trisecting the audience and sloping from stage to 
entrance, two dancing platforms skirt the "pit" on left 



GEISHA AND CHERRY-BLOSSOM 107 

and right and join the extremities of the scene : on 
them sit the singing-girls, concealed at first by cotton 
curtains. No room remains for the public but the 
floor between the platforms and a gallery, which faces 
the drop-scene of the stage proper. As the perform- 
ance only lasts an hour, it is repeated four or five 
times in the afternoon and evening of twenty days, 
and the price of admission to the best (gallery) seats is 
fifty sen, about one shilling, for economy and simplicity 
are conspicuous in this essentially popular entertain- 
ment. 

The dance is preceded by a ceremonious reception 
of great interest to the foreign visitor. He is conducted 
to an ante-room and requested to participate in 
O Cha-no-yUy an august tea-making. The preparation 
of this aristocratic refreshment must be conducted in 
accordance with inviolable rules, invented or rather 
modified by the great Taiko himself, who, not content 
with military glory, desired to regulate the boudoir as 
imperiously as the State, in this resembling Queen 
Anne, who "would sometimes counsel take and some- 
times tea." The twelve utensils employed must be 
separately cleansed and waved in air by the demure 
but smart damsel who presides with becoming dignity 
and science, every gesture, every operation of her 
deft hands being prescribed by rigid etiquette. After 
twenty minutes of silent incantation, as it seems, the 
dainty sorceress has brewed her potion. Then a 
careful sub-sorceress, who has attentively waited on 
the principal witch, prostrates herself at the feet of 
each of the guests, touches the floor with her forehead, 
and, as she presents a cup of thick, green bouillon, 
murmurs, u Oh, gracious stranger, deign to taste this 
honourable tea ! " Long as the tea ceremonies appear 



108 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

to the uninitiated, they are considerably shortened and 
imperfectly observed by the tea-drinkers, who, it is 
feared, break a thousand and one rules in uncouth 
efforts to copy the better educated Japanese. 

As seen from the strangers' gallery (for the majority 
of humble coolies and small shopkeepers have been 
waiting in patient line until the august tea has been 
absorbed by their betters, and now sit, packed in tiny 
compartments, on the floor of the pit) this liliputian 
theatre has much in common with the galanty-show 
which first kindled a passion for the stage in distant 
childhood. The drop-scenes are scarcely more than 
nine feet high, and of such thin material that through 
their pale pattern of willow and pine the shining of 
candles is discerned. It would not surprise me if 
they grew gradually whiter and brighter, serving at 
last as the medium for a droll shadow-pantomime 
of fantastic silhouettes. But even the children would 
not have come to see that, since their eyes have 
often followed at home the ingenious shadow-play of 
parental hands behind the paper-panelled skoji. Rarer 
and more exotic must be the show to please this easily 
amused but quickly sated audience. Suddenly the 
curtains on either side lift, disclosing to the left nine 
geisha, holding taiko or tzuzumi, circular drums and 
drums conical, beaten with batons or smacked with 
open palm ; to the right, nine more, with koto and 
samisen, plucking the strings with curved finger or 
ivory plectrum : all are much powdered and painted, 
but soberly attired in black and gold. The prelude 
lacks melody, lacks harmony, as we understand them, 
but the sharp, staccato cries, emphasised by drum-taps, 
the antiphonal, diminishing shrieks, which seem to 
punctuate a nasal, wailing recitative, insensibly induce 



GEISHA AND CHERRY-BLOSSOM 109 

a nervous tension of disquieting suspense. The time 
is most exact : the drums rattle, the zithers clang, in 
perfect unison. Then along the narrow platforms in 
front of the musicians issue simultaneously from beneath 
the gallery two slender files of geisha, whose pink and 
blue kimono suggest the hues of cherry-blossom and 
the else cloudless sky. Like running ribbons, they 
wind towards the stage, festooning at last into a mo- 
mentary bow before the famous gate, called O Kuru- 
ma-yose, of which the curiously carven peonies and 
phoenixes are admirably reproduced, evoking instant 
recognition. While the dancers disappear through 
that pictured portal and the curtain falls on the first 
figure of the dance, let me briefly indicate the subject 
and intention of this year's fantasy. 

Its hero is Hideyoshi, often entitled Taiko (the 
retired regent), next to Iyeyasu perhaps the most 
notable name in all Japanese history — so proverbially 
notable that Cromwell and Napoleon are not more 
vividly impressed on the memory of their countrymen. 
His dramatic rise from rung to rung of the feudal 
ladder, from peasant's hut to a regent's palace, which 
none but a noble had occupied before him ; the con- 
trast of his mean appearance, which caused him to be 
dubbed " The Monkey," with his grandiose achieve- 
ments, which included the commercial supremacy of 
Osaka and the subjugation of Corea ; his dreams of 
world-empire ; the patronage of art, which led him to 
summon a congress of tea-drinkers and to take an 
active part in the presentation of No plays ; the adroit 
concentration of power in his own person, despite the 
jealousy of patricians and the victories of contempo- 
rary generals ; these and many other circumstances of 
his career loom large in patriotic tradition. He was 



no JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

eclipsed by Iyeyasu in statesmanship, for the latter 
founded a constitution and established a dynasty, 
which lasted two hundred years, and might have lasted 
longer but for foreign intervention ; yet Hideyoshi's 
is the more picturesque, the more striking personality. 
Perhaps it would not be straining an historical parallel 
to allege that the great soldier of Kyoto prepared the 
way for the great legislator of Yedo as effectively as 
Julius Caesar prepared the way for Augustus. Be this 
so or not, it is plain that the beginning of the seven- 
teenth century after Christ in Japan and the end of 
the last century before Christ in Italy coincided with 
similar transitions from militant anarchy to peaceful 
despotism. The golden age of the Tokugawa may 
be cited as an argument for imperial rule with the 
pax Romana of the Caesars. It might be supposed 
that the names of Iyeyasu and Hideyoshi have no 
more virtue as a rallying-cry for their descendants 
than the watchwords of Roundhead and Cavalier have 
for us. But such is not the case. Subtly reincarnate 
in the cities which they glorified in life, their spirits 
still give battle after death in the bloodless field of 
civic rivalry. Tokyo is still Yedo, the Petersburg of 
the empire, created by a despot's will and the centre 
of law, of authority, of administration ; but it is to 
Kyoto, as to Moscow, the holy city, that lovers of art 
and of religion are inevitably attracted. Hers are 
still the finer temples, the lovelier fabrics, the nobler 
legacies of Old Japan. One thing, however, she has 
not, which the capital has — a fitting monument of her 
greatest citizen. Whereas the mausoleum of Iyeyasu 
at Nikko is such a masterpiece of commemorative 
gratitude, expressed in the language of plastic and 
decorative art, that " whoever has not seen Nikko 



GEISHA AND CHERRY-BLOSSOM [in 

[so runs the saw] has no right to use the word kekko 
(splendid)," the conqueror of Corea, the arbiter of 
august tea-making, lacks the tribute of a monumental 
tomb. This stain on the scutcheon of Kyoto is to be 
speedily wiped out. Now that the Emperor has trans- 
ferred his court to the eastern capital and made the 
Tokugawa citadel his own, the western merchants are 
eager to redress the balance by building on the heights 
of Maruyama for the glory of Hideyoshi and the 
bewilderment of tourists such a triumph of memorial 
architecture that Iyeya.su shall at last be outshone 
and the connotation of kekko be fraught with ampler 
meaning. The plans are drawn, the work begun, 
patriots and pilgrims have subscribed thousands of 
yen, the best modern artists in wood and bronze have 
been charged with the heavy privilege of surpassing 
their illustrious predecessors. Whether they succeed 
or not, the Hideyoshi monument was a subject so rich 
in suggestion, so popular in itself, so complex in its 
appeal, that the poet of the Miyako-odori could not 
wish for a better or more burning theme. And that is 
why the pink-and-blue geisha made their first exit 
through O Kuruma-yose, which Hidari Jingoro, the 
immortal left-handed carpenter, adorned with mar- 
vellous birds and flowers when commissioned to carve 
a royal gateway for his master's, the Taiko's, palace at 
Fushimi. 

The next scene represented Hideyoshi's garden. It 
is no ordinary garden, whatever foreigners may think, 
who merely see in it an appropriate background for 
the swaying flower-like bodies of the dancing-girls. 
It is a masterpiece of the celebrated aesthete, Kobori 
Enshu, and the artful disposition of lake and lantern, 
pebble and pine, may symbolise, for all I know, a 



ii2 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

divine truth or philosophic precept. My neighbour (a 
Buddhist neophyte, whose enthusiasm is tempered by 
erudition) points out to me the Moon-Washing Foun- 
tain, the Stone of Ecstatic Contemplation, and the 
Bridge of the Pillar of the Immortals, but it seems 
that the exigencies of scenic space have so fatally 
curtailed the Mound facing the Moon that the exact 
meaning of the parabolic design is made obscure, if not 
heretical. It is not in my power to reassure him, so I 
welcome with relief the reappearance of the dancers, 
who, bearing flowers in one hand and a fan in the 
other, step gaily out of the garden and, posing, perch- 
ing, pirouetting, flutter with deliberate grace through a 
maze of correlated motions. I do not dare to ask if 
their gestures point a moral : it is wiser to assume 
with Keats that " beauty is truth, truth beauty," 
and to follow with undistracted eye the solemn pretti- 
ness of these human dragon-flies. For their gauzy 
kimono sleeves and red-pepper-coloured obi recall the 
wings and hue of a giant dragon-fly, which dominates 
in its pride of national emblem the principal bridge 
over the Kamogawa. And, whether they poise flower 
on fan or fan on flower, or revolve with open fan 
extended behind their triple-tressed coiffure, they dart 
here and settle there with almost the unconscious, 
automatic smoothness of bird or insect. Proximity 
destroys this illusion. Watched from the subjacent 
vantage of the floor, the features of these tiny cory- 
phees are seen to wear that fixity of resolute attention 
which few children when engrossed in a performance 
are able to repress. The art of concealing art is hard 
to learn. Their elder sisters smile continually behind 
taiko and samisen, but the gravity of the childish troupe 
is more in keeping with the poet's retrospective vision. 



GEISHA AND CHERRY-BLOSSOM 113 

I hope the stage-carpenter atoned for his unorthodox 
abbreviation of Enshu's lesson in landscape by the 
exquisite view of the monastery of Uji Bridge. Nest- 
ling in the lap of pine-forested hills, this ancient temple 
of Byodo-in has been for at least six hundred years 
the protective centre of vast tea-plantations where is 
grown the finest tea for native taste, called Gyokuro, 
or Jewelled Dew. But Uji Bridge is famous also for 
its fire-flies, which on warm nights flash like living 
jewels beside the stream, to the joy of countless sight- 
seers, eager to catch and cage them. Throughout the 
ensuing dance many eyes were diverted from the 
geisha to the sparkling play of emerald motes across 
the mimic Ujigawa. This time the girls wore ker- 
chiefs such as peasant women wear when, with heads 
thus guarded and skirts rolled upward to the knee, 
they toil among the tea-plants. Then, unfolding and 
waving the kerchiefs, while a soloist intoned a 
rhapsody in honour of " the Great Councillor, whose 
memory lives for ever in the fragrant sweetness of 
the Jewelled Dew," they moved in pairs along the 
platform, alternately kneeling and rising, with arms 
extended or intertwined, their gradual retrocession 
signifying, as I learn, the reluctant withdrawal of 
summer. 

Autumn succeeds. Momiji-Yama, or Maple Moun- 
tain, deeply mantled in myriads of reddening leaves, 
gives the cue to the now melancholy, almost stationary 
languor of gliding figures : no longer dragon-flies or 
humming-birds, they drift slowly, one by one, into the 
crimson gorge, and are lost among the maple-leaves. 
At this point the floral march of the seasons is abruptly 
broken, as if to forbid too hasty interpretation, by the 
fall of tricolour curtains, richly embroidered in scarlet, 

H 



1 1 4 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

blue, and gold with Hideyoshi's crest, the large fan- 
like leaf of the Pawlonia Imperialis. 

The five-storeyed pagoda of Omuro Gosho, outlined 
in snow against the wintry landscape, signalises an 
ascent from temporal to eternal beauty. To this 
monastic palace ex-mikados came after abdication ; it 
had no abbots but those of imperial blood. And the 
next scene, presenting the Daibutsu, or great Buddha 
of Hideyoshi, is elegantly illustrative of the Buddhist 
teaching of permanence in transition. The first 
wooden image, 160 feet high, erected by the Taiko 
in 1588, was destroyed by earthquake in 1596. After 
his death his widow constructed a second in bronze, 
which was almost completed save for the casting of the 
head when fire devoured it in 1603. Lastly, his son, 
Hideyori, persuaded by perfidious Ieyaysu to waste 
his substance in rearing a yet more colossal figure, was 
forbidden to consecrate it by a message from the 
Shogun, who chose to discover in the Chinese in- 
scription on the bell ("On the east I welcome the 
bright moon, on the west I bid farewell to the setting 
sun ") a prophecy of his own waning and Hideyoshi's 
waxing radiance. A second earthquake in 1662, corro- 
sive lightnings in 1775 and 1798, consumed successive 
Buddhas in the same shrine, but the present god, 
whose gilded head and shoulders alone are visible, 
scaling fifty-eight feet from ground to ceiling, has 
defied the strokes of fate for ninety-nine years, and 
recalls to pious beholders the original builder's piety, 
triumphant at last through the irresistible resurrection 
of deity. 

Resurrection — the recurrence of spring and the re- 
novation of fame — crowns the final movement of this 
transcendental ballet. The Hideyoshi monument, as 



GEISHA AND CHERRY-BLOSSOM 115 

it partly is and wholly shall be, rises tier above tier on 
heaven-scaling stairs, approached by temples and 
groves which will one day vie in splendour with the 
carven gateways, the gigantic cryptomerias of Nikko. 
In a joyous finale the dancers pose, wreathed about 
the central summit of the monument, while cascades of 
red and green fire play on them from the wings ; then, 
strewing the steps with cherry-blossom and waving 
provocative clusters in the faces of the spectators as 
they pass, the double stream of geisha flows back with 
graceful whirls and eddies between banks of deafening 
minstrelsy ; the curtains rustle down, the fires flicker 
out ; the Miyako-odori is no more. 

As I ponder on this fascinating little spectacle, 
planned by artists and presented by fairies, the memory 
returns of a ballet, incalculably more magnificent, which 
the rich municipality of Moscow organised in honour 
of Nicholas II., Emperor of all the Russias, on the 
occasion of his coronation. I remember that thousands 
of roubles were expended ; that the decorations and 
costumes blazed with ostentation ; that armies of half- 
dressed women performed acrobatic feats in searching 
electric light. If any flowers of imagination had bloomed 
in the contrivers mind, they had been pitilessly crushed 
by costumiers, scene-painters, and ballet-masters. The 
result was a meretricious chaos of meaningless display. 
Hidden from the eyes of Moscow merchants and re- 
vealed to the patient artisans of Kyoto is that spirit 
of beauty, which, out of cotton and paper and Bengal 
lights can fashion a poem, so lovely that its simple 
schemes of form and colour haunt the memory like 
music, so profound that the deepest instincts of the 
beholder may be stirred by communion with the faith 
in which his fathers laboured and died. 



n6 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

It may well have been, however, that the shaven 
stripling beside me who so kindly unravelled threads 
of occasional doctrine from the glistening web of 
Terpsichore was almost alone in his desire to be 
edified. As he formally took his leave, most of the 
pittites rushed with laughter up the hill to the Chion- 
in Temple, before which stands a marvellous and 
patriarchal cherry-tree. Lamps were hung in its far- 
reaching boughs, and all night long the light-hearted 
Kyoto citizens chattered and sang beneath its multi- 
tudinous blossom. 

The connection between Buddhism and geishadom 
was recalled to me in a much less poetic setting by a 
peculiar play, which for seven nights filled the com- 
modious theatre of Tsuruga, a delightful port over- 
looking the finest harbour on the Sea of Japan. The 
piece was called " Shimazomasa," and the audience 
was moved to extraordinary demonstrations of delight 
by a very long soliloquy delivered for at least ten 
minutes by a Buddhist priest, who, seated on a mat in 
the centre of the stage and tapping his knees with a 
fan, excited my liveliest curiosity as to the purport of 
his tirade. Could it be a parody on pulpit eloquence ? 
Would these pious townsmen, whose bay was lined 
with temples, tolerate such mockery of sacred things ? 
The curtain fell and drew up again : the actor was 
forced to repeat his glib soliloquy. Then, to my 
extreme bewilderment, the priest was no more seen, 
and a tortuous but intelligible melodrama ensued, 
revealing the thefts and treacheries of a geisha, who 
came in the last act to a miserable end. The next 
night I returned, and being in time for the first act, 
which I had missed on the previous occasion, discovered 
that the plausible preacher was the geisha disguised. 



GEISHA AND CHERRY-BLOSSOM 117 

She had escaped from prison, and was recounting to 
herself the advantages which she expected to reap 
from the garb of a friar. " Young girls will come to 
me, craving amulets and charms for their lovers. Thus 
I shall know the names of honourable young men, who 
will not be slow to make my acquaintance. And, when 
we have sipped tea and talked of many pleasant things 
together, at the right time I shall whisper that it is no 
priest who is honoured by their august friendship, but 
Shimazomasa, the geisha. Moreover, I am sure to 
succeed, for a preacher ought to be a good-looking 
man. It is then easier for the hearers to keep their 
eyes fixed on his face ; otherwise their eyes wander 
and they forget to listen." It has been pointed out to 
me since that passages in this delectable sermon were 
taken bodily from the " Makura Zoshi " (" Pillow 
Sketches "), the work of a lady-novelist of the eleventh 
century. But plagiarism is no sin in the eyes of a 
Japanese dramatist, and the great merit was to have 
hit on an original situation. The manager of the 
theatre was so conscious of this, that, when a second 
play, entitled "Pistorigoto" (" Robbery under Arms "), 
failed to draw as well as its predecessor, he boldly 
transferred the incident without rhyme or reason to 
the plot, which was neither improved nor worsened by 
the addition. I was grateful, too, to the author of 
" Shimazomasa n for a touch of fancy, which redeemed 
the realism of his sensational story. During a love 
scene between three suitors and the heroine, who had 
regained for a time prestige and prosperity, a symbolic 
geisha, bearing no relation to the personages of the 
piece, chanted in an upper barred chamber, adjoining 
the outer wall of the tea-house in which the action was 
proceeding, snatches of erotic song, praising the joys 



n8 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

of love but foretelling the heavy Nemesis which, sooner 
or later, overtakes light women. In a play of ^Eschylus 
this would have been Erinyes on the Atridean roof, 
terrible and invisible, presaging doom. But I fear 
that he who wrote "Shimazomasa " had no deeper 
design than the interpolation of a taking song, since 
popular drama is as untroubled as the popular mind by 
haunting shadows of death and destiny. 



VULGAR SONGS 



VULGAR SONGS 

i 

" As for the common people, they have songs of their own, which 
conform as far as possible to classical models, but are much mixed 
with colloquialisms, and are accordingly despised by all well-bred 
persons. The ditties sung by singing-girls to the twanging of the 
guitar belong to this class." — B. H. Chamberlain. 

Poetry is the most meretricious of arts. Among its 
adherents are more unconscious snobs than in any of 
the classes distinguished and damned by Thackeray. 
This is because extrinsic ornament, the use of words 
to dazzle or conceal, like jewels or cosmetics, has more 
effect on most readers than intrinsic beauty, be it 
depth of feeling or exactitude of thought. Poets are 
to be excused, and often applauded, for pandering to 
our eyes and ears instead of ministering to our souls. 
It is better to admire a mean thought or paltry 
emotion, draped in exquisite folds of melody and 
colour, than to deplore a fine theme, marred by vile 
and clumsy treatment, just as a plain woman, dressed 
to satisfy the most critical arbiter of elegance, is more 
pleasing to contemplate than a bank-holiday belle, 
however comely, in discordant frock and feathers. 
Now, a beautiful woman beautifully robed is as rare 
as a poem of which the sense is aesthetically equal to 



122 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

the form; hence, words being cheaper than ideas and 
pretty things more plentiful than pretty features, we 
delight in second-rate women and in second-rate 
poetry, for want of first-rate, until, the taste being 
corrupted, we are inclined to endorse Theophile 
Gautier's canon, La perfection de la forme cest la 
vertu. The farther we follow this misleading maxim, 
the farther we leave behind us that most vital poetry, 
life itself. Often this fact is not perceived, for 
secondary art has generated secondary emotion : we 
derive pleasure from allusion rather than illusion, from 
sleight of wit rather than strength of spirit. Tennyson 
tells an Arthurian story, or wishes to, and his lis- 
teners are so charmed by the irrelevant embroidery of 
sound and simile that they do not perceive that what 
they obediently consider a naif barbarian, the hero, is 
really a Broad Church country-parson in fancy dress. 
Mr. Swinburne writes an Athenian play, or intends 
to, and his readers are so ravished by the splendour 
of intrusive rhetoric that they are in no mood to dis- 
tinguish between archaic piety and nineteenth-century 
free-thought. Thus the modern crowns his Muse 
with paper roses, cleverly manufactured, while the 
true flower blushes undisturbed or fades in humbler 
keeping. 

Fortunately it happens from time to time that the 
caprice of fashion lights upon a real rose, which is at 
once admired not only by the connoisseurs, but by the 
uncultivated crowd, which has never been taught to 
appreciate paper roses. Only it is to be observed 
that the former class retain their reputation by denying 
the name of rose to the new flower : it is a cowslip, a 
daisy — nothing more. Having ceased to be mere- 
tricious, the kind of verse I mean has ceased to be 



VULGAR SONGS 123 

poetry, in the opinion of these judges ; on the con- 
trary, they insist that, in their eyes, by discarding the 
frippery of language, which they rate so highly, the 
author of it is no poet, but a vulgar writer. And so, 
in the highest sense of the word, he is. He has 
touched the heart of the vulgar; he has found a 
common factor, which will "go" successfully "into" 
any assemblage of figures. Take, for instance, three 
capital instances of vulgar songs, which, as it seems to 
me, comply with the conditions demanded of poetry, 
that it shall communicate at once a vivid picture and 
a direct emotion. When Mr. Albert Chevalier sings — 

" We've been together naow for forty year, 
And it don't seem a dy too much ; 
There ain't a lydy livin' in the land 
As I'd swop for my dear old Dutch," 

the pathos of life-long love is conveyed quite as 
poignantly, if not so verbosely, as by Goethe in 
"Hermann and Dorothea." It is not literature, but 
it is poetry. When Mile. Yvette Guilbert sings — 

"J* termine ma lettre en t'embrassant, 

Adieu, mon homme, 
Quoique tu ne soy pas caressant 

J' t'adore comme 
J'adorais 1' Bon Dieu comm' Papa, 

Quand j'etais p'tite, 
Et que j'allais communier a 

Ste. Marguerite," 

the pathos of recollected innocence in a prostitute of 
Montmartre is more intense, because less diffusely 
obtained, than by Victor Hugo in the case of Fantine. 
The chanson of Aristide Bruant is not literature, but 
it is poetry. The highest instance of non-literary 
poetry is afforded by " The Barrack-room Ballads." It 



i2 4 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

is impossible to deny that the best of them are as vivid 
and as poignant as any poems ever written. Yet they 
deliberately distress conventional ears by their sub- 
stitution of power for beauty as governing principle. 
But even they retain too much literary skill to illus- 
trate my theory. How surprised were many Lon- 
doners when Alphonse Daudet was touched by the 
rollicking doggerel of " Her golden hair was hang- 
ing down her back ! " To them there was nothing 
pathetic in the refrain — 

" Oh, Flo ! What a change, you know ! 
When she left the village she was shy ; 
But alas ! and alack ! She's come back 
With a naughty little twinkle in her eye." 

But the distinguished novelist, with his fine sense of 
the thinly-veiled tragedies of life, was touched. The 
young gentleman from college, the labourer's daughter ; 
the visit to London, the descent of the girl from stupid 
simplicity to knowing naughtiness — the whole sordid, 
pitiable tale lay for him in a badly-written ditty, 
cynically set to a dancing tune. It takes a foreigner, 
whose ears have been sealed by fate to the siren- voices 
of an alien literature, to make such discoveries as this, 
to discern poetry where literature is woefully wanting. 
Therefore I am not in the least disconcerted to learn 
that the Japanese " common people have songs of 
their own . . . despised by all well-bred persons,'' 
but which illustrate for me this familiar phenomenon 
of non-literary poetry. As a foreigner, I am better 
fitted to appreciate them. When O Wakachio San 

sings — 

"Andon kakitate 
Negao mozoki 
Yoso no onna no 
Horeru-hazu," 



VULGAR SONGS 125 

it may be that she tortures a refined ear by " col- 
loquialisms," but to me her words disclose this graphic 
thumb-nail sketch of a jealous wife, leaping in one 
miserable moment from surmise to certainty : 

I, with trimmed lantern, 
Scan thy face, sleeping : 
By a strange woman 

Thou art beloved. 

If the singing-girl's vulgar song can stir at times as 
keen a throb of sympathy as the ditties which celebrate 
a "costers courtship " or a gigolettes captivity, yet 
this effect and colloquial phrasing are the only points 
of resemblance. The points of difference are so 
numerous that, before quoting other specimens from 
a geishas rdpertoire, something should be said of 
the characteristics peculiar to this and all Japanese 
verse. 

The most obvious trait of recognised and unrecog- 
nised poems is their brevity. The great majority of 
them consist of three, four, or five lines, in which the 
number of syllables is either five or seven. Even the 
so-called Naga-uta (long songs), which enjoyed a 
short period of popular favour, seldom ran to more 
than a few dozen lines. Oldest and most classical of 
metres is the Tanka, a stanza of thirty-one syllables, 
and a Tanka competition is held every New Year, 
for which a theme is chosen by the Emperor. In 
January 1896 thousands of amateur poets composed 
" Congratulations Compared to a Mountain " ; in the 
following year they sang of " Pine-trees Reflected in 
Water." The Royal Family itself takes part, and the 
whole nation thus inaugurates the year with libations 
of lyrical enthusiasm. Motoori's famous comparison 



126 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

of Japanese patriotism to cherry-blossom radiant on 
the hills at sunrise is a good example of the Tanka : 

" Shikishima no 
Yamato-gokoro wo 
Hito towaba, 
Asahi ni niou 
Yama zakura bana." 

This may be rendered — 

Heart of our Island, 

Heart of Yamato, 

If one should ask you 

What it may be ; 
Fragrance is wafted 
Through morning sunlight 
Over the mountain, 

Cherry-trees bloom. 

But the Hokku or Haikai, which dates from the 
fifteenth century, imprisons the soul of wit in a cell of 
even briefer dimensions. It gives the Tanka fourteen 
syllables start, and covers the course in three strides 
of five, seven, and five. The pace is so swift that 
it almost always requires an exegetic field-glass (a 
microscope and a race of animalcula were perhaps a 
fitter comparison) to estimate the astonishing triumphs 
of this wee Pegasus. One of the winners established 
this remarkable record : 

"Asagao ni 

Tsurube torarete, 
Morai mizu." 

The naked eye perceives in this, indistinctly — 

By convolvulus 

Well bucket taken : 
Gift-water. 



VULGAR SONGS 127 

Mr. B. H. Chamberlain's powerful glasses reveal the 
merit and the secret of this achievement so clearly 
that I borrow them for the reader's use. "The 
poetess Chiyo," it appears, " having gone to her well 
one morning to draw water, found that some tendrils 
of convolvulus had twined themselves round the 
rope. As a poetess and a woman of taste, she could 
not bring herself to disturb the dainty blossoms. So, 
leaving her own well to the convolvuli, she went out 
and begged water of a neighbour." Both Tanka and 
Haikai may enter for the prizes of polite literature, 
but the Dodoitsu, being reserved for vulgar songs, is 
"despised by all well-bred persons." As reasonably 
might the plebeian "moke" of 'Enery 'Awkins aspire 
to run at Ascot or Goodwood, as the Dodoitsu be 
classed with Haikai and Tanka ! Culture ignores it ; 
society excludes it from the list of intellectual amuse- 
ments. Yet its inferiority is sometimes more apparent 
than real. The metre is a happy medium between 
the two aristocratic favourites, since it consists of four 
lines, containing twenty-six syllables in all ; three lines 
of seven syllables are clenched by a finale of five. It 
very often enshrines a sweet fancy, a delicate image, 
a chiselled exclamation of grief, or faith, or roguery. 
The nearest analogue to all three would be the epigram, 
were it not that the Oriental poet frequently aims at 
nothing more than a pictorial flash ; a landscape seen 
by lightning, a life divined by instinct ; a momentary 
miniature, not a condensed conclusion. I can think of 
but one English poem which partially follows the same 
method, Robert Browning's "Apparitions": 

" Such a starved bank of moss 
Till, that May-morn, 



128 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

Blue ran the flash across : 
Violets were born ! 

"World — how it walled about 
Life with disgrace 
Till God's own smile came out : 
That was thy face ! " 

Yet, bright and clean-cut though it be, this gem is 
clouded by metaphors which would puzzle the Japanese 
intellect. It would fail to grasp the meaning of " a 
starved bank"; it would miss the identity of "God's 
smile " with a human face. Personification and meta- 
phor lie outside its limits : even the] simile is rare. 
In the forty or fifty Dodoitsu which I have collected 
and translated no simile is employed, unless both 
branches are plainly indicated. They abound in fancy ; 
they lack imagination. They derive their very force 
from this limpet-like allegiance to fact, their suggestive- 
ness from the assurance that the quick-witted but 
unimaginative reader will associate one fact with others 
of the same order and not be misled by the vagaries of 
Western vision. To the Western mind, on the other 
hand, this association, wanting in his experience, will 
sometimes need explanation ; at other times the mean- 
ing is crystal-clear. There are shades of significance, 
touches of tenderness, which escape translation be- 
cause dependent on grammatical peculiarities which no 
European tongues possess. The personal pronoun, 
generally unexpressed, by its absence generalises and 
so humanises the passion of a lover's cry ; a reticence 
is gained which accords well with the shrinking delicacy 
of a sensitive heart. When expressed, the word for 
M I" will connote submission, the word for "thou" 
lordship or lovership, by a double sense, impossible to 
convey. Thus, the very structure of Japanese verse,. 



VULGAR SONGS 129 

even in the case of vulgar songs, forbids that literary 
luxuriance which makes modern English poetry "mere- 
tricious " because tricked out with superfluous gewgaws. 
You cannot daub such a tiny profile with Tennysonian 
enamel or Swinburnian rouge. On the other hand, 
it were absurd to pretend that the Tanka, much less 
the Dodoitsu, is often of superlative value. For one 
which embeds in amber a scene or sentiment of excep- 
tional worth, a thousand will deserve as much immor- 
tality as an ingenious riddle or far-fetched pun. Yet, 
it being conceded that their literary pretensions amount 
to nil, a foreign student will find in the hundreds of 
Dodoitsu, published anonymously in paper-covered 
volumes, which cost about three farthings, an inex- 
haustible fund of plebeian sentimentality and humour. 

Apology should perhaps be offered for the very im- 
perfect mould in which I have attempted to recast 
the Dodoitsu. If the reader will repeat to himself, 
dwelling equally on each syllable, the following poem, 
he will remark three things : first, the absence of 
rhyme ; secondly, the liquid lapse of melodious words ; 
thirdly, the sudden jerk with which it terminates : 

" Nushi to neru toki 
Makura ga iranu 
Tagai-chigai no 

O te makura." 

I have adopted a metre which avoids rhyme and 
ends abruptly, but runs more swiftly than the original. 
I have prefixed a title. Thus the preceding poem 
becomes — 

Pillow Song. 

Sleeping beside thee, 
No need of pillow; 
Thine arm and mine arm, 
Pillows are they. 



130 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

This being alternative to the method sometimes 
adopted of literal unrhythmical translation, I hope 
occasional licence will be condoned. This is what I 
might have written : 

Lord-and-master (or Thee)-with-sleep-when, 
Pillow-indeed-no-go- ; 
Mutual-different-of 
Honourable- Arm-Pillow. 

To be quite literal is to be crudely unintelligible ; the 
absence of all gender, number, and person makes 
certain interpolations inevitable. At the same time, 
the translator must take for his unvarying motto 
Sancta simplicitas. 

Love, of course, inspires innumerable quatrains, 
which fly from mouth to mouth, from geisha to gejo, 
like butterflies from one blossom to another. Some- 
times it is the man who speaks, as in the following : 

Snow Song. 

Careless of snow-drifts, 
Nightly I seek thee; 
Deeper the love lies, 

Heaped in my heart. 

More often the woman, who does not allow her sense 
of humour to be atrophied by passion. But perhaps 
the humour is quite unconscious in this description of 

Lovers Meeting. 

So much to talk of! 
Yet for joy weeping, 
Words, when we meet, fall 
Head over heels. 

Bodily beauty is, of course, particularly fascinating to 
a race which cannot be pronounced less susceptible to 



VULGAR SONGS 131 

its charm than those European peoples — Greek, 
Italian, French — whose feeling for line and colour is 
reckoned a superiority in them to their Northern 
neighbours. Yet the panegyric of his mistress's hair 
or eyes or bosom is entirely banished from even 
vulgar songs. Innate refinement rather than cold 
indifference is probably the cause. The tree of the 
spirit is preferred to the fruit and flowerage of the 
flesh. Yet one seems to detect a flavour of apology 
in this : 

Confession. 

Stylish appearance 
Does not bewitch me; 
Fruits pass, and flowers : 
I love the tree. 

The Japanese word ki signifies both H tree " and 
" spirit." Quite commonplace, I own, is the consola- 
tion afforded by some lines engraven on a toothpick, 
but how many almond-eyed maidens visiting the 
tea-house which thus combined mental with carnal 
refreshment have tittered to read them ! 

Consolation. 

In mine ears linger 
Words said at parting; 
Sleeping alone, I 

Hope for a dream. 

Rather quaint is the following lament over conjugal 
incompatibility. But the wife knows that she must 
submit, on pain of divorce ; and the word kigane, 
which I have rendered c< trouble," is used of little 
inevitable domestic worries. The terms " fire- 
nature " and " water-nature " are taken from Chinese 
philosophy. 



i 3 2 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

Incompatibility. 

Thou, cold as water, 

I, hot as fire ; 

Till we to earth turn, 

Trouble is mine. 

Mathematicians who revel in romance of the fourth 
dimension will note with pleasure this little sum in 
amorous arithmetic : 

Addition. 

Longing to meet thee, 
Longing to see thee, 
Six and four inches, 

Passion's a-foot ! 

The exact translation being — 

Longing to meet, six inches, 
Longing to see, four inches, 
These, indeed, being added together, 
Make a shaku. 

The word shaku has two meanings : ( i ) a linear foot ; 
(2) a woman's hysterical desire. Ten inches go to a 
Japanese foot. 

The separation of lovers is a fruitful topic. I select 
three poems which treat of it in divergent but equally 
piquant manners. The first might be called — 

AMANTIUM iRyE. 

Would that my heart were 
Cut out and shown thee ! 
Quarrelling leaves me 

Deeper in love. 

The second contains a hint of that fondness for trees 
and flowers which permeates all classes : 



VULGAR SONGS 133 

Among the Pines. 

If, from thee sundered, 
I roam the pine-wood, 
Can it be dew falls ? 

Can it be tears? 

The third frames a pretty fancy : 

Reflection. 

Far from each other, 
Yearning for union ; 
Good, were our faces 

Glassed in the moon ! 

Then it should be remarked that the wife figures as 
frequently as the sweetheart in this lyrical woodland, 
vocal with twittering sentiment. The European has 
been so long accustomed to regard romance as the 
province of young men and maidens, led through three 
volumes or five acts to the altar, that married life is 
either prosaic or only to be made interesting by a 
breach of the Seventh Commandment. More than 
ever does he presume that this convention must apply 
to domestic life in the East, for he has always been 
informed that there a girl must stifle the instincts of 
her heart and pass submissively from her fathers to 
her mother-in-law's yoke. As the French saw puts it, 
Fille on nous supprime, femme on nous opprime. But 
this reasoning fails to take into account two modifying 
considerations. Custom is so tempered by practice 
that an affectionate parent (his name is legion) would 
not risk his daughters happiness by marrying her to 
an odious or notoriously evil person. Japanolaters will 
assert that no Japanese person can be odious unless 
corrupted by Western influence. But this is nonsense. 
What most makes for happy marriages is the strong 



134 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

sense of duty and the loving disposition of a Japanese 
girl. Neither husband nor wife regards the sexual 
instinct, however veiled, as the corner-stone of partner- 
ship for life. Obedience to parental wisdom is the first 
stage, mutual politeness the second, devotion to chil- 
dren, begotten or adopted, the third. From these 
unselfish elements a high average of felicity is attained, 
possibly even higher than elsewhere. However that 
may be, the wife's fidelity, jealousy, affection recur as 
motives of popular poesy. That essentially feminine 
quality which every bachelor has observed in some 
otherwise perfect wife "wedded to a churl," and of 
which I can find no better definition than the following 
verse affords, would seem common to both hemi- 
spheres : 

Raison de Femme. 

Dearer than kindness 
Of those I love not 
Is thine unkindness, 

Loved one, to me. 

This degrading and doglike devotion explains the 
joy in service which robs it of all sting. Take this 
revolting picture, which I christen 

Contented. 

Gladly on love's road 
Pulling the rickshaw, 
Undrawn, I draw it 

On to the end. 

The husband (selfish brute!) is of course seated in 
the rickshaw, and it is worth notice that " love's road " 
is the first metaphor we have encountered. Against 
the jealous wife, bending, lantern in hand, over her 



VULGAR SONGS 135 

faithless lord, may be set this quiet tribute of grateful 
security : 

My Husband. 

Thou art as yonder 
Delicate hill-pine, 
Through years a thousand 
Ever the same. 

It would not occur to a Tokyo editor to invite his 
readers in the silly season to answer the question, 
" Have women a sense of humour ? " But, if it did, 
such quatrains as follow might convince him that they 
have: 

Warning. 

I am my master's 
Single-flowered cherry ; 
Folk seeking blossom 

Bend no boughs here. 

Waiting. 

All night I waited, 
Yet my lord came not ; 
None but the moon came 
Under my net. 

The kaya (mosquito-net) is not a mere curtain, but a 
green gauze room within a room, suspended from the 
corners of the ceiling. 

Humour has indeed discharged thousands of these 
pretty pellets, which lend themselves admirably to 
satire, drollery, and play on words. Yet these are 
precisely the most difficult to render. A jest, of 
which the point depends on punning ambiguity, should 
never cross the frontier. When a foreigner has been 
made to see the quaint conjunction of incongruous 
ideas, he will yet miss the surprise attending identity 



136 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

of sound, which strikes with comic duplicity a native 
ear. Moreover, the Japanese looks for verbal legerde- 
main in his most serious literature with an appreciation 
that seems puerile to us, who relegate puns and riddles 
to half-educated minds. There is an equally large 
field of fun which can only be indicated, since British 
prudery plants it round with fig-trees. The Japanese, 
like the French, see no harm in tipping Apollo's arrows 
with malicious mirth to assail humanity in the arms of 
Venus, where it cuts a vulnerable and often ridiculous 
figure. The Anglo-Saxon professes to exclude comedy 
from the bedroom. He gains in dignity ; he loses in 
gaiety. If this same comedy, banished to the smoking- 
room, descend to too gross levels, he has only to cross 
the Channel and will find at the Palais Royal or else- 
where such traps for laughter as Shakespeare and 
Aristophanes did not disdain to set. He supposes 
that the interests of morality require many drags on 
the wheels of humour. He is generally sincere : the 
restraint is not imposed by " hypocrisy," as foreigners 
believe and assert. But neither is the opposite 
assumption justified, that races which permit them- 
selves more joyous licence are less virtuous than our 
own. On the contrary, they find in laughter a safety- 
valve sanctioned by custom. And it seems to me that 
Madame and Okamisan, who are free to giggle behind 
their fans at audacious pleasantry, are placed by 
destiny in a more fortunate attitude than the British 
matron, who is reduced to indignation or discomfort. 
Critics of Japanese poems, novels, and plays usually 
dismiss this element of mirth with the adjective 
44 pornographic," but the epithet (if it presuppose an 
ignobly prostituted pen) entirely misses the mark. 
The passages so labelled do not allure readers with 



VULGAR SONGS 137 

the promise of forbidden fruit : they merely denote a 
wider range of innoxious merriment, indulged in by a 
nation whose sense of humour is as yet unfettered by 
our local and artificial sense of propriety. The naweti 
of such songs is proved by the fact that they hardly 
ever sound a cynical note. The tone of the only one 
which I shall quote is exceptional : 

Lothario. 

Steered -with deft rudder, 
Fooled with soft speeches, 
To my verandah 

I hale her up. 

But this song may have the opposite meaning of a 
woman alluring a man with soft speeches. As there 
are no pronouns and no genders in the vernacular, the 
sense is entirely ambiguous, and the Japanese whom 
I have consulted do not agree. So I append the 
original : 

"Shita go kaji toru 

Ano kuchiguruma 

Noshite nikai 

Hiki-ageru." 

A fragrant anthology might be compiled of Dodoitsu 
written in praise of flowers. There is certainly no 
other country where flowers are so universally loved. 
The humblest cottager will place in the tokonoma (an 
alcove with slightly raised dais) of his living room an 
iris, a spray of plum-blossom, or a liliputian tree. 
The noble will devote years of patient cultivation to 
the production of a chrysanthemum more variegated 
in colour and shape than those of his neighbour. 
Wistaria, lotus, convolvulus, and azalea vie with the 
cherry-blossom in attracting sightseers, who come in 



138 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

crowds to feast their eyes on garden or pond. The 
arts of flower-arrangement and landscape-gardening 
may be looked upon as branches of science and philo- 
sophy ; at least, they command as much veneration. 
Inevitably, then, is the minstrel's lyre enwreathed with 
innumerable garlands. Yet, possibly because of the 
" pathetic fallacy," which so constantly pervades similar 
parterres of English poesy that its absence makes the 
Japanese flower-plot seem scentless, the fancies which 
find expression in this class of subject appear par- 
ticularly trivial. Sometimes a personal preference is 
stated, as in 

White Peony. 

Full of set flowers, 
Full is my chamber; 
Thou art most stately, 
White peony. 

Sometimes the cut blossom is commiserated, as in 

Adrift. 

Ah ! how my petals 
Float in the flower-vase ; 
Helpless and rootless; 
Sad is my lot. 

Sometimes the operation of a natural law, to which 
plants as well as other forms of life are subject, 
points a moral : 

Death, the Leveller. 

Peonies, roses, 
Faded, are equal; 
Only while life blooms 

Differ the flowers. 

But human egoism, which only sees in nature a back- 



VULGAR SONGS 139 

ground to its own existence, has not stained with drops 
of romantic blood these pale flowerets. No Japanese 
poet would conceive such a stanza as that in " Maud " — 

"There has fallen a splendid tear 
From the passion-flower at the gate; 
The larkspur listens * I hear,' * I hear ' ; 
And the lily whispers, ' I wait.' " 

He knows that the Great Mother has other cares 
more absorbing than the love-sick suspense of a 
whining suitor, that the myriad marriages of bird and 
beast and blossom are perhaps as much or as little to 
her as the predilections of Maud. He would enjoy 
Professor Huxley's rap at the singers who " mistake 
their sensual caterwauling for the music of the spheres," 
and his pedestrian fancy would shudder at the unchar- 
tered imagination of Tennyson. 

Buddhist doctrines have so profoundly influenced 
thought and feeling, that thousands of little songs rise 
daily like prayers of intercession or gratitude to the 
Lord Buddha. But these would demand a volume of 
explanation, which I am not competent to write. I 
select one playful and one serious poem, having refer- 
ence to religious ideas. The first might be called 

Extravagance. 

Joy drew the rickshaw, 
Heaven takes vengeance, 
Empty the larder, 

Rickshaw of fire. 

This may be expanded into : "We drove about in a 
rickshaw, enjoying ourselves ; we spent all our money ; 
we are punished by Heaven, for we suffer remorse, 
like the sinners, who are pulled in fiery rickshaws by 



i 4 o JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

avenging devils in hell." Such engaging pictures of 
a future state are often exhibited at temple fites, and 
serve to stimulate liberality on the part of wor- 
shippers. Quite philosophic is the pessimism of 

Occasion. 

For the moon, cloud-wrack ; 
For the flower, tempest; 
For the truth, this world; 
Wanting the hour. 

I translate ukiyo by "this world": the more scru- 
pulous dictionary renders it by " this fleeting or miser- 
able world, so full of vicissitudes and unsettled." 
For the "vale of tears" is not a Christian concept 
only : Mrs. Gummidge was also a Buddhist without 
knowing it. It is curious that this theological term, 
with its disparaging connotation, was affixed to the 
modern popular school of painters, among whom 
Hokusai is the best known, because they descended 
from lofty, conventional subjects to the life of worka- 
day folk. The central thought of the poem, however, 
narrowed to a romantic application, recalls a line by 
Browning : 

"Never the time and place, and the loved one altogether." 

Writers of Dodoitsu have this advantage over ver- 
sifiers who employ more classical metres, that they are 
not forced by convention to repeat stereotyped fancies, 
but are at liberty to invent new ones. The balloon, 
the camera, the locomotive, may take the place of 
dragon, stork, and phcenix. This pouring of foreign 
wine into native bottles produces a quaint blend. A 
girl thus reproaches her lover with 



VULGAR SONGS 141 

Inconstancy. 

My heart to body 
Fuel to engine; 
Thy heart an air-ship 

Loose in the sky. 

Here the similes are plain and forcible. The next 
poem is less lucid : 

Despair. 

Borne in no road-car, 
Endless the railway, 
How shall poor I reach 
1 Station at last ? 

Literally : " Riding in no vehicle (which is used for 
a short journey), the train whithersoever going (for an 
indefinite distance), By doing what shall this body of 
mine, Terminus ? " That is : My love is not a short- 
lived fancy, but a lifelong passion, until I reach the 
terminus of death. Graceful, indeed, but scarcely 
gracious is a lady's reply to an admirer who had sent 
her his photograph : 

The Higher Photography. 

Only your likeness ! 
Faithful? I know not. 
Could I but take one, 

Too, of your heart ! 

The double meaning of a "faithful" likeness and a 
" faithful" lover can, for once, be preserved in English. 
A pun on the word tokeru, which means " to melt " 
and "to be undone," is allied with a dainty antithesis 

in 

Dissolution. 

White snow of Fuji 
Loosened at sunrise; 
Maiden's shimada 

Loosened for sleep. 



1 42 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

The shimada is perhaps the most elaborate, and 
certainly the most elegant, way of dressing the hair. 
It is generally adopted by geisha and young married 
women, dividing favour with the chocho or butterfly 
coiffure. Respect for age is counselled in a rather 
pathetic protest by an old woman, who recalls her 
faded beauty in a conventional image. Nightingales 
and plum-trees are always associated in Japanese 
minds. 

Once. 

Mock not the puckered 
Bloom of a dried plum ; 
Once on its fresh spray 

Nightingales wept. 

The umeboshi, a plum pickled in salt and shiso and 
afterwards dried, is as happily descriptive of the 
wizened monkey face of a Japanese crone as the peach 
of an Anglo-Saxon lassie's complexion. It will be 
seen that serio-comic touches of self-depreciation, like 
the old lady's frank comparison of faded bloom to 
dried fruit, do not jar on the Japanese. Sincerity — 
genuine feeling and just appreciation — is at the root 
of their poetic impulse. Why should a disappointed 
girl shrink from whispering her secret to the reeds of 
anonymous minstrelsy ? 

Rejection. 

As vine weds ivy, 

So would I clasp him ; 

If the man will not, 

What can be done? 

From the foregoing thirty Dodoitsu the reader can 
form a not inadequate opinion of "ditties sung by 
singing-girls to the twanging of the guitar." That 








o 

X 
13 

en 

3 

u 



VULGAR SONGS 143 

accidental glamour, which constitutes style and makes 
of one word a queen, of another a beggar-maid, through 
vicissitudes of usage, does not emanate from one of 
them. They are marred for a native ear by domestic 
and colloquial idiom, " soiled by all ignoble use " ; they 
treat too often of sexual sentiment, which our literary 
verse parades to satiety, and which theirs rather 
shrouds in dignified silence. No doubt you will find 
among Tanka and Haikai more ingenuity of thought, 
more dexterity of pen. But, putting that aside, the 
Dodoitsu has more interest for a humanist, since its 
range of feeling is wider. Just as the street-scenes of 
Hokusai and the love-scenes of Utamaro afford more 
humane pleasure than the purely artistic studies of 
their academic precursors, so we are less allured by 
"A Fan in my Lady's Chamber," by "A Distant 
View of a Fishing Boat," by " Hoar-frost on the 
Bamboos," than by the artless outcries of else inarticu- 
late nature. The blue-stocking at court, who finds it 
so easy to turn a polished compliment, is more remote 
from our hearts than her humble sister, doing rough 
work in the rice-field. The sorrows of wife and maid, 
the joy of flowers and laughter — these inspire in us 
deeper sympathy than the experimental literature of 
dilettante dames. There is often a crude spontaneity 
in the non-literary poem which is more pleasing than 
a recondite conceit. But, however crude the expres- 
sion may be, it yet owes something to form. The 
poet is obliged to satisfy the easy metrical conditions 
which regulate the structure of a Dodoitsu, thus en- 
suring a neat circlet for aj single gem, whether it be 
paste or diamond. How clumsy a Japanese song can 
become, when the Muse has forgotten her corset, may 
be seen by the following effusion : 



i 4 4 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

" Mukojima, 
Cherry-blossom, 
Sliced dumpling, 
Boiled eggs, 
Girl, come here ! 
Drinking, sleeping, 
Heigh-ho! Tra-la-la!" 

This is neither poetry nor literature. It reminds one 
of the primitive war-song, which Mr. Aston quotes in 
his " History of Japanese Literature " as being sung 
by the Imperial Guards : 

" Ho ! now is the time ; 
Ho ! now is the time ; 
Ha ! Ha ! Psha ! 
Even now 
My boys ! 
Even now 
My boys ! " 

In conclusion, let me say that an exhaustive study 
of Dodoitsu would assuredly yield richer results than 
the writer has been able to obtain by the casual 
gleaning of such songs as fell in his way from the 
lips of geisha or student 



TAKING THE WATERS 



K 



TAKING THE WATERS 

' I 

In a large enclosure behind one of the smaller Shiba 
temples on a burning ist of July sat a perspiring 
crowd of men and boys, whose attitude of joyful and 
critical attention strangely revived memories of a great 
match at Lord's or the Oval. Yet the trial of strength 
which was provoking similar enthusiasm presented a 
very different spectacle. Instead of the green pitch, a 
sanded ring formed the arena ; instead of twenty-two 
lithe cricketers, clad in white flannels and protected by 
glove and pad from dangerous balls, a band of twenty- 
two wrestlers, enormous and bloated, with no clothing 
but a garish loin-cloth and no protection but their own 
skill, awaited the umpires word to begin. He, too, 
bore little likeness to the straw-hatted oracle in a 
milkman's coat, whose vigilant silence is unbroken but 
for occasional appeals from bowler or batsman. His 
kimono was of grey silk, his sash embroidered with 
gold, his short cape of black silk with brightly coloured 
clasp ; and, as he gave the signal with his fan, or 
directed the combatants with excited insistence, hop- 
ping and crying on the flanks of the panting giants, he 
resembled some gorgeous gadfly goading two buffaloes 



148 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

to the fray. Nothing could be less Japanese than the 
build and bulk of the wrestlers. They seemed men of 
another race, Maoris or Patagonians, with their huge 
naked limbs and long hair, drawn forward in a queue to 
the middle of the head or falling loose on the shoulders. 
Before entering the ring each would carefully adjust 
his apron and bind his hair as coquettishly as possible, 
for, hideous though they appear to us, these monsters 
of fat and muscle are the darlings of every schoolboy, 
enjoying a popularity as fervent as that of " W. G." or 
Prince " Ranji." Their names, their records, their 
chances of success are on every tongue. 

The bouts are more interesting to watch than any I 
had seen elsewhere, for attack and defence were more 
various. The conqueror might win by other methods 
than by bringing his opponent to the ground : if he 
could hurl or hustle him outside the ring, victory was 
his. The rules are said to authorise forty-eight falls — 
twelve throws, twelve lifts, twelve twists, and twelve 
throws over the back. To avoid being pinned down 
or pitched out, the smaller men must exercise extra- 
ordinary agility, and loud was the shouting when 
Goliath fell victim to a scientific ruse. It happened 
sometimes that the men lost their tempers ; spitting, 
slapping, taunting would precede more legitimate sport : 
then indeed it was good to hear the bystanders' 
Homeric laughter, which soon recalled the heroes to 
their higher selves. I will confess that these indecorous 
interludes were partly due to a mischievous American, 
who primed his favourites with praise and whisky. 
As the afternoon wore on, the heat became intolerable, 
but, fired with professional ambition, Dares succeeded 
Entellus, while cheap coloured portraits of the com- 
petitors found ready sale and the overcrowded enclosure 



TAKING THE WATERS 149 

reeked of sweat and sand. At length the final bout 
was announced. Each side chose a champion, whose 
laurels were difficult to gain, for three rivals must be 
worsted in continuous struggle by the prize-winner. 
Before the end was reached my patience had been 
exhausted. On a degenerate descendant of the fight- 
ing Anglo-Saxon breed this barbarous exhibition of 
brute locked with brute began to pall. Besides, the 
tropical atmosphere, which from that day forward 
made dress a weariness and sleep impossible, pleaded 
more eloquently than any argument how wise it were 
to seek less fiery pleasures. I resolved to leave Tokyo 
the following day andtake the waters of some mountain- 
spa, remote from wrestlers and mosquitoes. 

At an altitude of nearly three thousand feet on the 
north-eastern slope of Mount Haruna, an extinct vol- 
cano, stands the picturesque village of Ikao. Half 
the houses are hotels and most have balconies, which 
command a view of the Tonegawa Valley and sublime 
Akagi San. The main street climbs from terrace to 
terrace, a natural staircase, between chalets equipped 
with bamboo pipes, through which the hot yellow 
water pours incessantly. Proximity to the capital 
makes this health resort very popular, yet access is not 
altogether easy. After five hours' train to Mayebashi, 
another five hours are required of rather rough rickshaw 
travelling : at one point the Tonegawa must be crossed 
by means of a rope ferry ; at others the traveller must 
dismount, so steep is the road. Yet he will be well 
rewarded at his journey's end by a panorama of rare 
extent and beauty. Behind him, and eighteen hundred 
feet above, soars Soma-yama, from which the summit 
of Fuji is just visible ; opposite stretch the Mikuni and 
Nikko ranges; at his feet are wooded valleys and 



150 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

foaming torrents. The Kindayu Hotel, under most 
courteous and capable management, combines two 
great advantages. It supplies the foreigner with such 
food and general comfort as his habits generally render 
indispensable ; at the same time, it accommodates so 
many Japanese of all classes, that exceptional oppor- 
tunities are afforded of becoming more intimately 
acquainted with the latter than would be possible in 
their own homes, where various duties and claims 
absorb their time. Here they seek only health and 
pleasure : no obstacle but the easily surmounted barrier 
of language hinders mutually delightful intercourse. 
At least, the writer formed more friendships and 
obtained more glimpses of native life during a month 
at Ikao than at any other period of his stay in the 
country. 

Bathing is, of course, the centre round which 
existence revolves. Half-a-dozen small baths, fitted 
with hot and cold water, that the temperature may be 
modified to suit each bather, enable the stranger to 
bathe in the solitude he prefers. But more than two 
dozen others, in which from three to thirteen people 
can bathe together, are more characteristic of the 
place. The largest has a hot douche, and the tem- 
perature is often as high as 115° Fahrenheit. Here 
the native guests return two or three times a day to 
soak and to gossip. In this al fresco salon laughter 
reigns and conversation flows as freely as the water. 
Surprised indeed would the bathers be to learn that 
a costume is deemed essential by more prurient races, 
whose artificial manners divorce simplicity from 
decency. Yet Western prudery is beginning to cor- 
rupt the upper classes, who tend to convert these 
social gatherings into family parties, without going so 



TAKING THE WATERS 151 

far as to adopt a bathing-dress. The water is rather 
turbid and yellow. It contains iron and sulphate of 
soda. Most of the patients suffer from rheumatism or 
barrenness, and look on a course of treatment as a 
sovereign remedy. Some also drink of the mineral 
spring which lies at the end of the Yusawa ravine, 
where seats and swings line a well-shaded avenue. 
Probably they derive more benefit from the pleasant 
promenade than the unpleasant beverage. 

The first friend I made was a silk merchant and a 
poet. I shall call him Yamada San. I had gone one 
day a few hundred yards down the precipitous path 
leading to Shibukawa, when my attention was arrested 
by a very pretty tableau. To the left of the road lay 
a lute-shaped pond, traversed by little bridges and 
dotted with islands on which stone lanterns and 
wooden shrines proclaimed the owner's piety. The 
deeper end of the lakelet was overshadowed by a 
balcony, on which sat two serious young men with rod 
and line, while a daintily-dressed girl reclining beside 
them was preparing bait — that is, crumbling a soft 
bread-cake with delicate fingers. The fish seemed 
wary, and I remarked one astute leviathan among 
gold-fish that succeeded in snatching the bait and 
swimming away with an impudent cock of the tail that 
would have exasperated a less patient angler. Re- 
marking my interest, the fishermen politely invited 
me to join them; and then I discovered two curious 
features of this gentle angling — its cheapness and its 
humanity. The proprietor was willing to provide all 
accessories and implements for three-farthings, on one 
condition : any fish which had the imprudence to be 
hooked must be tenderly replaced in the water. Thus 
he reconciled Buddhistic kindness to animals with 



152 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

encouragement of sport, and the fish obtained a maxi- 
mum of food with a minimum of risk. It seemed that 
Yamada San was also staying at Kindayu's. We 
therefore returned together, while O Mitsu, his charm- 
ing child-wife, walked submissively behind. Woven 
silk filled his business hours, but woven sentiments 
his leisure. Before the hotel was reached he confided 
to me the poem which had just germinated in his 
mind that afternoon. He had really been fishing for 
fancies. 

" Yioyeyama 

Kasanaru kumono 

Okunaron 

Honokani moreru 

Saoshika no koye." 

Range above range, piled up to the clouds, what numberless 

mountains ! 
Faintly between escapes from afar the voice of the roebuck. 

As he understood a little English, I conferred on him 
this brace of hexameters. He was naturally astonished 
by such long lines, but, as his Tanka contained thirty- 
one syllables and my translation only thirty, we had 
both expressed the same ideas in about the same 
space. Exchange of verses was followed by exchange 
of presents. In the evening I received a large cake 
with Yamada Sans compliments. Then came my 
first unconscious lapse from etiquette. In the hope 
of pleasing both husband and wife, I presented 
O Mitsu with a quaintly carven kanzaski, an orna- 
mental hair-pin ; but, though she did not seem dis- 
pleased, the poet thanked me with a cold, disapproving 
air. At a later stage he explained how improper it 
was considered to pay the least attention to a married 
woman. I apologised, and he went on to explain that 



TAKING THE WATERS 153 

love-marriages were becoming the rule and not the 
exception, and that among his friends few matches 
were now arranged without consulting the wishes of 
the two most concerned. However, O Mitsu was 
permitted to play to me on her koto, and to condone 
my indiscretion with the parting gift of a much- 
cherished fan, on which was inscribed a famous poem 
by Tsuma to the following effect : 

Though I may sing of the beautiful garments of beautiful 

women, 
Dearer to me are the pines of Japan and the cherries in 

blossom. 

By this engaging couple I was initiated into a novel 
game, played with flower cards, Hana-Karuta. The 
pack consists of forty-eight pieces, each three inches 
by two, and of twelve suits, Moon, Rain, Iris, Clover, 
Cherry-blossom, Maple-leaf, Wistaria, Chrysanthemum, 
Pine, Peony, Plum, and Paulownia Imperialis. The 
four cards of each suit are worth 1, 5, 10, and 20 
points respectively. The player may only draw a 
card from the pool if he have one of the same suit in 
his hand. Failing this, he must enrich the pool by 
one of his cards when his turn comes to draw. Each 
pair, when made, is laid on the table, and when the 
pack is exhausted the player who has scored most 
points is declared winner. This very simple game 
had much vogue in Ikao, but when the party in- 
cluded no ladies the more difficult Go-Ban was more 
popular. Like all his countrymen, Yamada San was 
a rapid draughtsman, and would often, when appealed 
to for information on historical or religious matters, 
illustrate his meaning by clever sketches. Of these I 
retain two excellent specimens : a drawing of Yoshit- 



154 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

sune in elaborate armour and a long-nosed tengu, or 
mountain-goblin, which has many characteristics in 
common with the Scandinavian trold. Unfortunately, 
our acquaintance was limited to three days, for at the 
end of that time business recalled the poet to Ashi- 
kaga, but he exacted a promise that I would pay a 
visit to that interesting town, given up to cotton and 
Confucius. 

As if to console me on the evening of this depar- 
ture, the kindly Kindayu family invited all their guests 
to a performance given by three local geisha in the 
principal room of the hotel. The chief musician was 
a masculine-looking woman of fifty, who thrummed a 
kokyu, or three-stringed fiddle, and broke in on the 
recitative of her young companions at unexpected 
moments with peculiar growls and sharp cries as 
of an animal in agony. When the narrative of the 
soloist took a tragic turn, these inhuman noises were 
so distressing that, without following the story, I 
experienced acute pain, while my neighbours of the 
more sympathetic sex were actually in tears. Had 
my musical education been more advanced, I should 
have realised that these were no singers of light 
Dodoitsu, but exponents of a far loftier type of enter- 
tainment, the Gedayu or musical drama. It originated 
in the middle of the seventeenth century, and is 
sometimes called Joruri after a heroine of that name, 
whose tragic love for Yoshitsune is a favourite theme 
of composers. In fact, the geisha on this occasion 
were usurping the rdle of Joruri-katari or dramatic 
reciters, whose chanted recitative formed the nucleus, 
first, of the marionette theatre, and, later, of the 
popular theatre, when dialogue and scenic art were 
superadded. In the absence of either human or 



TAKING THE WATERS 155 

wooden dolls, a most lugubrious effect was produced. 
At last, to my relief, a male performer, a pince-sans- 
rire, whose dry humour and staccato diction stamped 
him of the tribe of Grossmith, transformed the 
audience from weeping Niobes to effigies of mirth. 
In vain the polite little ladies tried to smother their 
smiles behind their raised kimono sleeves : as the 
song proceeded they were vanquished by fits of 
laughter, and shook helplessly on their cushions. I 
possessed but one cue to this infectious merriment 
in the constantly recurring word emma, which on the 
lips of Mr. Dan Leno would have assuredly referred 
to his wife or his mother-in-law, those patient butts of 
music-hall humour, but which would only mean for 
Japanese ears the Buddhist Rhadamanthus, who pro- 
nounces sentence on all who enter hell. Consider- 
ably mystified, I turned to Tanaka Okusama, another 
visitor from Ashikaga, and inquired if "the honour- 
able singer were really singing about hell-things." He 
was. The song was an amusing but irreverent pas- 
tiche of social satire. It described the arrival in 
Hades of the bad judge, the cheating merchant, the 
false singing-girl ; their confession and appropriate 
punishment. Again I missed the marionettes, for 
their presence would have recalled an exactly similar 
treatment of the same theme in a Montmartre puppet- 
show. And I remembered how the Parisian populace 
joined delightedly in the cry of " A la chaudiere ! " as 
the mimic devil chased lawyer and cocotte into a 
Punch-and-Judy Inferno. It was the mystery play of 
the Middle Ages, surviving as a crude comedy for the 
ignorant poor — a rough travesty of the theology in 
which their more instructed superiors still affect to 
believe. 



156 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

In the course of the next fortnight I became well 
acquainted with Tanaka Okusama, and through her 
with many others. She was a most intelligent, 
capable woman, who conducted one business while 
her husband had charge of another, grain and rice 
being the commodities in which they dealt. She 
considered herself middle-aged at the age of thirty- 
two, wore therefore most sombre colours, and was 
the mother of six boys, two of whom joined her at 
Ikao. Her explanation of the emma song was fol- 
lowed by an avowal of religious disbelief. She was 
neither a Buddhist nor a Shintoist, but believed that 
the priests taught old wives' fables, and for her own 
part concentrated her mind on her business and her 
family. A free-thinking Japanese woman was a novel 
phenomenon to me then, though I have since met 
several. The fragments of Western history which 
she had acquired were also interesting items in her 
conversation. Plied with questions about English 
sights and customs, I was also asked to give an 
opinion on Caesar, Napoleon, and Epaminondas. 
What I recalled of the last hero was so shadowy that 
I felt inclined to parody the Oxford undergraduate's 
evasive reply : " About Epaminondas little is known, 
but it may safely be assumed that, as he lived, so 
he died." However, Tanaka Okusama knew more 
than that about him, for she had just been reading 
" Keikoku Bidan," a popular novel by Yano Fumio, 
who is supposed to have selected Theban politics for 
his subject, that he might administer useful lessons to 
his compatriots. I suspected that novel-reading was 
the source of most of the lady's knowledge. Indeed, 
she disclaimed all pretension to the title of blue- 
stocking. 



TAKING THE WATERS 157 

Continual tea-parties in my room or hers, though 
very educational, were marred for one of us by two 
circumstances — the familiarity of servants and the 
uncertainty of time. Democratic in sympathy, pre- 
ferring the expansiveness of the simple to the discreet 
inanity of the genteel, I was yet a little surprised 
to remark the ultra-friendly relations between ser- 
vant and guest. A " boy " would enter with profound 
obeisance, deliver a message or an article demanded, 
and, being invited to join the party, would play cards, 
ask and be asked very personal questions, make him- 
self thoroughly at home, and depart when duty called, 
bowing low. At first it is difficult not to associate 
these prostrations with subservience, but they really 
imply nothing but good manners. When the guest 
left the hotel, he would hand the "boy" a tip, 
wrapped in paper, as etiquette requires, for that deli- 
cacy which impels us to concede intimacy and refuse 
money, or to refuse intimacy and concede money to 
social inferiors, because the conjunction of the two 
offends our sense of the deference due to class-distinc- 
tions, would appear strange to the far more rigidly 
classified Japanese. In fact, more real democracy — 
if by that be meant frank and unembarrassed inter- 
course between high and low — is possible under a caste 
system than any other. Every one H knows his place," 
and has no inducement to affect a higher rank than he 
really possesses by an assumption of haughty manners. 
The innate courtesy of most Japanese servants renders 
friendship with them more delightful than might be 
supposed, but occasionally one comes across a con- 
ceited, half-educated fellow in European dress, who 
passes from familiarity to impertinence. However, I 
was soon taught a more difficult lesson than that of 



158 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

forgetting class prejudice. Perhaps the hardest of all 
truths engrained in Oriental theory and conduct is the 
unimportance of time. We, who live by machinery 
which measures for most men the hours of work, the 
hours of play, until life becomes a time-table and the 
heart a chronometer, are absolutely incapable of in- 
difference to Time's tyranny. When I proffered or 
accepted an invitation, nothing amused these hospit- 
able lotus-eaters so much as my natural bias towards 
punctuality. What did it matter ? The morning, if I 
liked, or the afternoon, or the evening : time was made 
for man, not man for time. Accordingly, if I paid a 
promised call and became the involuntary witness of a 
toilette, a meal, or a siesta, I had merely to withdraw 
and call again. If my guests did not arrive at the pre- 
scribed hour, they would come some hours later, or 
even sooner, or not at all. At first I was so put out 
by these vagaries and so fearful of intruding, that it 
took message after message to draw me from my own 
society or that of a book. But gradually I realised 
that in this happy country offence was not readily 
given or taken ; that time was a negligible conven- 
tion ; that to follow the impulse of the moment was 
wiser than to ape the precision of a clock. I have 
heard the British trader exclaim in Japan, " They can 
never become a great nation ; they are so unbusiness- 
like ! " and I sympathised with his horror of Eastern 
nonchalance, but I doubt his conclusion. Merchants 
in Russia are just as dilatory. Yet either country can 
count on promptitude in military or political exigency. 
What commerce loses in time it gains to some extent 
through restrictions imposed on foreign rivalry. In 
any case, as they emerge from feudal to industrial con- 
ditions those indolent races will be forced by the law 



TAKING THE WATERS 159 

of self-defence to quicken the pace. As for me, I 
resolved to ignore my watch and rely on Zaburo 
Tanaka. 

Zaburo was a bright-eyed schoolboy of ten. Close- 
shaven and bare-footed, he raced from wing to wing 
of the hotel in a single cotton garment with cheerful 
impetuosity. At breakfast I would hear him on a 
balcony fifty yards away reading aloud in that mono- 
tonous sing-song which his countrymen adopt, even in 
trains, without evoking a protest from fellow-travellers. 
At first I imagined him to be reciting prayers, but this 
supposition was erroneous. Two or three times a day 
his knock would rattle on my sliding-door and a loud 
summons would entreat Edoardo San to keep him 
company. When his mother was occupied with private 
cares, he would obtain leave to visit with me the 
Benten-daki, and as we watched the tumbling terror 
of that lovely waterfall, sparkling against green boughs, 
I was the recipient of many schoolboy confidences. 
His great ambition was to fight for the Mikado ; his 
accounts of school life were tinged with military 
ardour. The elder boys had guns and knapsacks of 
fur ; in the summer boys and masters camped out 
together ; his intimate friend, Rokutaro, had lost an 
elder brother in the war with China, and the others 
were quite envious of that funereal privilege. He 
remembered one verse of a song which his school- 
fellows were fond of singing, as they marched to the 
drill-ground. The air was spirited, but the words 
were more naif than ingenious, if the following stanza 
be typical of the rest : 



160 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 



JAPANESE WAR-SONG 




s 



q q==£i 



SS 



^4»<z « - reshi 
Oh. how full of bliss, 



yo • ro - ko • lashi 
how delightful 'tis, 



ta- ta - kai ka - e^z «0 

When you fight, to win the day 



m 






33 — ra : 



Jti=zfzi: 



S 



a 



zdzat 



Momo chi -ji no 



A d-a wa mina 



A- to naka nari 



Hundreds went before, Thousands are no more, All our foes have passed away. 



Though precociously intelligent, Zaburo was not too 
old to play with toys, and the gift of a pop-gun 
cemented our too brief alliance. 

In the middle of July falls the Buddhist festival of 
Bon, better known as the Feast of Lanterns, when 
the souls of the dead revisit the living. The decay 
of religion has unfortunately robbed this touching 
celebration of its more striking features. Formerly 
on the eve of the fete the graves were hung with 
lanterns, that the spirits might be lighted on the way 
to their old homes. On the day itself the villagers 
fasted, but left before the household shrine flowers and 
water and a little food, while they went out towards 
evening and danced in a large circle, singing quaint 
songs and clapping their hands to the strains of drum 
and flute. Then, when the time was come for the 
spirits to return, on river and stream were launched a 
fleet of tiny boats of straw, each with its paper lantern, 
in which the invisible visitors were wafted back to 
shadow-land. These things are done no more, or 
only in remote rural districts. Danger to shipping 
caused the floating of little fire-ships to be prohibited 
in the ports, while at Tokyo the ceremony of " opening 



TAKING THE WATERS 161 

the river " covers the Sumidagawa with gay pleasure- 
boats, and in the secular crackle of fireworks the 
sacred associations of the day are forgotten. In the 
villages the peasants have not abandoned the dance, 
which town-folk delegate to geisha, but its date varies 
from district to district, and I did not witness one 
until a month later at Akakura. Yet Ikao has con- 
trived to preserve the more pious aspect of All Souls' 
Day by two simple services of devotion in graveyard 
and temple. 

By the merest accident I caught sight of a group 
of women passing through a dark grove of crypto- 
meria, whose lofty aisles are sown with innumerable 
tombs. I had often been there, allured by the tran- 
quil images of Buddha, whose face and posture seemed 
eloquent of everlasting repose. To-day their silent 
watch was broken by the passage of many rustling 
skirts and gentle laughter, for even in such places the 
childish musumd does not deem it sinful to smile. I 
struck across the wood and recognised the sister of my 
landlord, Kindayu San, accompanied by three or four 
serving-women. One carried a kettle of boiling water, 
another some sticks of incense, and a third some 
flowers. Permission being accorded to join them, I 
went along with them to more than thirty graves. 
On each a little water was poured, a little incense 
burned, and the prayer, " Namu Amida Butsu," 
uttered. The humblest of the dead was equally 
honoured with the nearest kinsman, and, after rela- 
tions by marriage or adoption had been visited, the 
last to receive salutation was a banto, or temporary 
bookkeeper, who had died four years before after 
eight years' service. " Will not the honourable 
stranger also make a prayer ? " was asked, and I 

L 



1 62 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

complied, repeating " Namu Amida Butsu," " I adore 
thee, O Eternal Buddha," in the hope that their god 
would understand that his claim to adoration by bar- 
barian lips lay in the kind memorial offices which his 
faith inspired. Many of the graves lay so far apart 
that we had crossed two valleys and found ourselves 
some miles from home at the luncheon-hour of noon. 
So we entered the nearest tea-house and were served 
with tea and sweet cakes. As the proprietor had a 
small stock of sacred images for sale, I bought for a 
souvenir of the day two clay foxes with tails gilded at 
the tip, the snarling door-keepers of the rice-goddess ; 
but Inari must have rejected in anger my mock 
homage, for three weeks later in a carefully packed 
yanagori I grieved to find chaotic " fragments of no 
more a " fox. 

That afternoon I remarked an unusual stir and 
clatter of small feet below my balcony. Crowds of 
children, on foot or slung behind the patient backs of 
mother or elder sister, were making their way to the 
large school-house, which stood a few yards beyond 
and below the southern entrance of the hotel. It 
being holiday time, I had never seen any of the 
scholars, and the sole occupant of the spacious play- 
ground was a weather-beaten stone effigy of Jizo in a 
red cotton night-cap and yellow bib. This wet saint 
(nure-botoke), as the Japanese laughingly call such 
unhoused divinities, had always excited my sympathy, 
for there he stood without his five companions' society, 
exposed to rain and wind, disregarded even by the 
very infants whose patron saint he is considered to 
be. At any rate, I could see no pious heap of pebbles 
laid on his knees, though the neglectful little ones 
would be glad enough, on reaching the dry bed of the 




10 




TAKING THE WATERS 163 

River of Souls, to seek refuge in his large kimono 
sleeves, when mischievous demons should demolish 
the pebble-heaps which it would be their duty to pile 
up there as the penalty of childish faults. But 
perhaps they were too busy playing to remember him 
during the holidays, or perhaps they had unbelieving 
teachers who connived at their neglect. I indulged 
a faint hope that public expiation was to be made, and 
that the toddling crowd would lay some tribute on his 
faithful lap. But its destination was a temple situ- 
ated below the school-house, and as it swept merrily 
by grotesque, deserted Jizo I fancied that the stone 
features grew more rigid and grey beneath the cotton 
night-cap, his consolatory proof of at least one wor- 
shipper. 

Having set a few stones on his pedestal, I followed 
the rest to a small temple, which was surrounded 
by women and children. On a raised platform, which 
formed the temple-floor, about a dozen priests, re- 
splendently robed, were moving in rotatory procession 
and chanting passages of the Buddhist canon. The 
babies were gazing open-eyed on the bright em- 
broideries of instruments and vestments, while as 
many people as could be accommodated were allowed 
to occupy mats at one extremity of the platform. 
Among them a place was obligingly made for me, 
and soon after I had taken my seat the priests also 
sat down to listen to a discourse from a young and 
eloquent preacher. I had been in many temples, and 
watched the crowds making prostration, buying holy 
knick-knacks, and flinging copper coins into the broad- 
barred money-boxes, but this was the first sermon 
I had the good fortune to hear. Continually reverting 
to the theme, " Mina sekai no hito kiodai " — all beings 



164 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

in the universe are brothers — the orator spoke long and 
earnestly of the unseen ties which bind the living and 
the dead, of the infinite chords and scales of existence, 
of the love and goodwill which no creature was too 
humble to show or too lofty to accept. Sometimes 
an old man groaned, and sometimes an urchin was 
removed screaming, but most of the listeners remained 
passive and stolid till the end. Then babies were 
hoisted, farewell bows were exchanged, and the con- 
gregation melted away. If you ask me why so many 
children were present, I can only suppose that they 
were attracted by the excitement of novelty. There 
was none of the bustle and glare which make a matsuri, 
the ordinary temple fete, one glorious saturnalia of 
piety and merriment, when theatres and booths, covered 
with wonderful paper toys and every known variety 
of sweetmeat, block the approaches to the sacred 
building. In this the Buddhists greatly outshine their 
more austere Shintoist rivals. Probably nine-tenths 
of the peasants are in agreement with an old man 
with whom I conversed after an impressive service 
at Hommonji, the chief temple of the Nichiren sect. 
As we descended the temple-steps I asked him 
why he preferred Buddhism to other forms of faith. 
"Because," he answered, "it is more amusing." 

I was awakened the next morning by a peculiar 
rocking sensation, as if my bed were a cradle swung 
to and fro by invisible hands. Then I saw the 
obbasan, an old woman who waited on the European 
guests, rush, frightened and half-dressed, along the 
verandah. It dawned on me that this must be a long- 
hoped-for earthquake, and as the vibrations ceased 
after some seconds, which naturally seemed of unusual 
length, I was slightly disappointed. Residents say 



TAKING THE WATERS 165 

that the fear of earthquake, unlike the fear of other 
dangers, is increased rather than lessened by expe- 
rience. Certainly the Japanese themselves, in spite of 
their fatalism, realise to the full the terrible penalty 
of inhabiting a land of volcanoes. That day little else 
was talked of. Two little girls, who had been adopted 
by Xindayu San after losing their parents in the great 
shock, followed by a tidal wave, some years before, 
became objects of particular attention. Now, Ikao is 
perched on the flank of a volcano, and the site of an 
extinct crater is occupied by the beautiful Haruna 
Lake, which I had not yet visited, so gladly I accepted 
the proposal of Nitobe San to walk there. I had made 
his acquaintance a few days previously on the archery- 
ground, adjoining the hotel, where he displayed re- 
markable skill in handling the unwieldy bow which is 
still a popular and effective weapon in the hands of 
Japanese archers. Indeed, he was only surpassed by 
a samurai of about fifty, who hit the bull's-eye four 
times out of five. Yet his appearance was far more 
studious than athletic, for Nitobe San attended the 
medical school at the University of Tokyo, and 
when he pored over German text-books through gold- 
rimmed spectacles had already the reassuring gravity 
of a family doctor. 

Our way lay first along the Yusawa ravine, but, 
instead of continuing to the source of the mineral 
spring, we ascended a steep and tortuous path to the 
right, which at every turn disclosed new aspects of 
the woods and valleys beneath. Often we would stop 
to gather tiger-lilies or yellow roses, that shone like 
golden stars in a sky of emerald foliage, for, except 
where the carefully kept track wound in and out, the 
mountain side was swathed in evergreen. Issuing at 



1 66 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

length from the trees, we reached a grassy plateau, on 
which is the grazing ground of the milch-cows that 
supply Ikao. To the left is a curious conical hill, 
known as the Haruna Fuji ; and other masses of 
irregular rock are partially covered with lichen, so as 
to produce the effect of ruined castles half hidden by 
clambering ivy. Indeed, my first impression was that 
these were relics of feudal fortresses, until closer 
inspection revealed the freakish cleverness of Nature. 
Two miles of level walking brought us to the lake, 
which is simply a large tarn surrounded by small 
bosom-shaped hillocks at such regular intervals as to 
repeat the irresistible suggestion of human ingenuity. 
It might have been a giant's silver shield embossed 
upon the border with knobs of jade. 

Gladly we rested at the tea-house on the margin, for 
hot sun and loud cicada had been fatiguing eye and 
ear. After lunch I took a bathe from the only boat to 
be obtained, though its crazy, water-logged condition 
left much to be desired. However, the boatman did 
his best to remedy the deficiencies of his craft, and, as 
I undressed, hung each garment in succession round 
his neck, to prevent their being soiled and immersed, 
as they otherwise certainly would have been. Much 
refreshed, I persuaded my companion to extend our 
walk to the ancient Shinto temple of Haruna, not 
more than a mile and a half away. We climbed to the 
top of Tenjin-toge, at which pass the road becomes 
too narrow and precipitous for rickshaws, as it plunges 
suddenly into a curiously imagined glen. Never had 
I seen such bizarre configuration, such eccentric juxta- 
position of tree and stone. Pines darted like dragons 
from the cliff; rocks started like mammoths from a 
thicket, or lowered savagely across the torrent, which 



TAKING THE WATERS 167 

raced or trickled below. It seemed as though the 
spirits of water and wood and fire had suddenly 
been petrified at the supreme moment of a great 
triangular battle, and waited, weapon in hand, to spring 
once more each at his adversary's throat. Evidently 
the old temple, dedicated to Ho-musubi, the god of 
fire, and Haniyasu-hime, the goddess of earth, was 
the citadel, defended and attacked by these weird 
combatants. Towering cryptomeria stood on guard 
around it, and huge rocl^s, tip-toe on tenuous bases, 
attended the word of command to crush the curving 
rafters. It needed but one signal from the imprisoned 
fire-god, one movement of the volcanic earth-goddess, 
to fill that fantastic glen with the clamour and ddbris 
of primaeval war. Elsewhere we might have admired 
the carven serpents, that writhed so realistically about 
the side-beams of the porch. At Nikko or the Nishi 
Hongwanji temple in Kyoto they might have im- 
pressed us as masterpieces of creative carpentry, but 
at Haruna the comparison was too trying. It was 
hopeless to compete with God's more monstrous 
curios. 

Here at last was a Shinto stronghold which did not 
seem abandoned and desolate, but bore traces of fre- 
quent worshippers. Above the sacred cisterns waved 
blue towels, suspended after purification ; at the feet of 
a Shintoised Jizo rose a mound of propitiatory stones ; 
on the kagura-do, or dancing platform, an old woman, 
the priest's wife, began her symbolic dance. As she 
slowly revolved, shaking her bunch of bells or waving 
her fan, she chanted words so venerable that all clue 
to their meaning had been lost. Yet, in her faded 
garb and shrunken person she personified more fitly 
the solemn contortions of a dying faith than the smart 



1 68 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

young priestesses of Nara in their red silk trousers and 
snowy mantles of flowered gauze. When those tripped 
forward, with thickly-powdered faces and chaplets of 
artificial wistaria, their garish aspect transformed the 
temple to a tea-house, but in this sombre fastness at 
the heart of Haruna we seemed to behold a very sibyl 
of aboriginal Japan. The assistant priest was affable 
but ignorant. A copy of the " Kojiki," earliest of known 
records of the Way of the Gods, was kept there, he 
affirmed, but he had never opened it and might not 
show it to strangers. In winter it was terribly cold, 
and snow-storms would sometimes cut them off from 
all communication with the outer world. When floods 
made the torrent impassable the senior kannushis 
children were obliged to do their lessons at home. 
But summer brought troops of pilgrims to the valley, 
and their offerings sufficed to keep the little band of 
guardians at their posts. "Are you never afraid," I 
asked, "of the earth opening and the rocks falling? 
Only this morning we felt a slight shock of earthquake 
at Ikao." The young priest smiled gravely. " No," 
he answered. " For more than five hundred years the 
kami have protected their holy place. Why should 
we be afraid ? " 

We made a small donation, and received in exchange 
a printed promise of Ho-musubis and Haniyasu- 
hime's blessing, to which our names were appended. 
Then, turning our backs on that grim sanctuary, we 
climbed slowly back to the Tenjin Pass. As we re- 
traversed the plateau of Little Fuji, Nitobe San 
described the student's life at Tokyo. Between 1890 
and 1898 their numbers had increased from thirteen to 
nearly nineteen hundred, so that a second university 
was shortly to be inaugurated at Kyoto. But of 



TAKING THE WATERS 169 

course the Red Gate (as the Tokyo University is 
familiarly called) would remain the classic portal of 
modern learning. The college of medicine, in which 
his own studies were pursued, is entirely under German 
influence : none but German and Japanese professors 
give instruction. In the other faculties of law, engi- 
neering, literature, science, and agriculture, English 
teachers predominate. Most of the students work 
desperately hard, but enjoy great liberty. The majority 
are poor, and some have, very rough manners. The 
Emperor was informed on one occasion by his Chief 
of Police, who had been summoned to receive orders 
to repress anti-foreign demonstrations, that " the 
offenders were invariably either rickshaw-men or 
students." Their life is far more gregarious than that 
of Oxford or Heidelberg or the Sorbonne. In the 
small block of residential buildings within the university 
grounds six or eight young men read, eat, and sleep in 
one room. These are a privileged minority of scholar- 
ship-winners, and are subjected to rather irksome 
restrictions in the matter of visitors and late hours. 
But the larger number live in lodging-houses, where 
practically no more control is exercised than over any 
other class of citizens. Competition is so severe that 
posts cannot be found for any but a small fraction of 
the budding doctors, lawyers, and journalists who hope 
to make a living in those professions. In conse- 
quence the disappointed graduates turn soshi and live 
by their wits as spies, agitators, actors, authors, or 
even as itinerant musicians. Naturally, extreme views 
are adopted and discussed with the fervour of youth. 
The wildest socialism, the narrowest nationalism, find 
apostles. Though full of enthusiasm for most Western 
innovations, Nitobe San was strongly opposed to the 



170 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

substitution of Roman characters for Chinese ideo- 
graphs. In vain I pointed out to him how the latter 
blocked the pupil's advance and impeded international 
intercourse. He feared that such a step would not 
only tend to destroy communion with the past, but 
would also diminish the probability of that alliance 
between China and Japan which was cherished as the 
only means of checking Russian aggression. I formed 
the conclusion from this and other conversations that 
the salient qualities of a Japanese student are inde- 
pendence and passionate curiosity. It did not surprise 
me to learn afterwards from an English professor that 
his classes had summaries of his lectures printed at 
their own expense to facilitate the acquisition of new 
ideas in a foreign tongue. 

While we had been talking of his vices and his 
virtues, the gregarious student had invaded Kindayu's. 
On returning to the hotel we encountered a band of 
eight or nine stalwart young men wearing blue cotton 
hakama (trousers so ample as to resemble a divided 
skirt) and armed with small hammers. They had 
come to geologise, disappeared on long expeditions 
during the day, and only returned at a late hour. As 
they shared a room and were by no means uproarious 
at night, the other guests were scarcely conscious of 
their presence. I think, however, that two pretty 
schoolmistresses, the wives of officers in the army, 
who had carefully abstained from making the acquaint- 
ance of any other visitors, welcomed the arrival of 
these ardent scientists. Their rooms adjoined, and 
sitting on the threshold, that no beholder might mis- 
interpret their platonic comradeship, they indulged in 
intellectual flirtation — a joy too subtle for the under- 
standing of their unsophisticated sisters. 



TAKING THE WATERS 171 

Ikao was in truth a microcosm of Japanese society. 
Representatives of nearly every class came and bathed 
and went their way refreshed in spirit, if not cured in 
body, by the restful babbling water. One day an 
ex-daimyo, who had held high office in a recent Cabinet, 
arrived with a small retinue of relations and depen- 
dants. Quiet and dignified, he was only to be distin 
guished by a- greater sobriety of manner from less 
aristocratic neighbours. Occasionally odd instances 
of polygamous experiment attracted general remark. 
A Tokyo merchant came accompanied by an elderly 
wife, a blind baby, and two mistresses who had for- 
merly been geisha. The three women were on excel- 
lent terms, and disputed only the privilege of spoiling 
the thrice-mothered child. Every evening for them 
was a " musical evening," as the man had a good 
voice and the geisha were expert samisen players. 
Nitobe San described the manage as "a little bar- 
barous." But, whether his opinion was shared by 
many or few, it made no difference in the reception of 
the new-comers, who were treated with the same frank 
courtesy as less numerously married folk. Indeed, 
frankness and propriety were marked characteristics of 
this hydropathic paradise. If the bathers imitated 
Adam and Eve in simplicity of tenue, their behaviour, 
too, like that of our first parents before the Fall, was 
faultless. Conversation was entirely unembarrassed 
and perfectly decorous. The very publicity of this 
hotel life was a guarantee of morality. And, in fact, 
one could see that beneath extreme freedom of inter- 
course careful etiquette was observed. Neither young 
girl nor married woman ever went out alone : the tea- 
party never became a tete-a-tete. The shoji of the 
apartments were generally half open ; the amusements 



172 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

were such as to assemble and introduce the visitors to 
one another. Dancing and flirting, as practised in 
English watering-place or French casino, were un- 
known. If the men desired other female society than 
that of their own class, they could seek the geisha-ya 
or joro-ya. If many of the diversions were childish, 
those of Brighton or Trouville cannot rank as intel- 
lectual exercises. It was a lazy, healthy, happy sort of 
paradise, and I did not live in it long enough to 
discover the serpent. 



II 

On the seventh day of the seventh moon I bade fare- 
well to Ikao, and, loaded with little presents, descended 
slowly to Takasaki. Regret at leaving that delightful 
haven was soon lost in conjecturing the solution of an 
astronomic mystery. Village after village flaunted a 
galaxy of paper stars, which flecked the green back- 
ground of interminable trees with dancing flakes of 
red, white, and blue. At every door stood a bamboo- 
stem crowned with a cluster of five-rayed stars, each 
ray being made of paper of a different colour. From 
this astral chaplet long streamers floated in the breeze, 
like the gohei, or cut paper inscribed with prayers, 
before a Shinto shrine. At Takasaki station I met 
Nitobe San's sister-in-law, O Sen San, who was re- 
turning to her husband's house at Tokyo, while the 
student himself had gone to the more efficacious hot 
springs of Kusatsu. Being fellow-travellers as far as 
Akabane Junction, I begged her to reveal en route the 
meaning of those starry signals which continued to 
flutter gaily in every district we passed, as though our 
train were freighted with royal passengers. Then I 
learned that all pious folk were celebrating that day 
the festival of Tanabata. The white streamers cor- 
responded in number with the children in each house- 



174 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

hold, and on every one was written a poem desiring 
happiness, especially good fortune in love, for the child 
whose name was appended. More than this she did 
not know, but a handsome young priest, who had 
remarked my zeal for knowledge, kindly volunteered 
the following legend : 

The Herdsman and the Weaver. 

" Long ago, as Chinese sages tell us, there dwelt in 
Heaven a herdsman and a weaver on opposite sides of 
the celestial river. All day the herdsman tended his 
cattle, and was far too busily occupied to think of 
taking a wife. All day the weaver sat at her loom, 
making clothes for the Emperor, and this labour took 
up so much of her thoughts that she even neglected to 
adorn her person. Then the Emperor, remarking her 
diligence and pitying her loneliness, sent for the herds- 
man and said : ' Inasmuch as ye are both so devoted 
to my service, I will that ye shall henceforth be 
devoted to one another. I give thee this woman in 
marriage.' So the girl crossed the river, and no 
married couple ever lived more happily together. 
But after a time the Emperor perceived that the 
marriage, though it might be a good thing for them, 
was an evil thing for him, since the weaver began to 
neglect her work, and his clothes, which had formerly 
won the admiration of his courtiers, showed signs of 
hasty and careless weaving. At this the Emperor 
grew very angry, and sent for the weaver and said : 
' Inasmuch as this marriage has been a joyful thing 
for thee and for thy husband, but a woeful thing for 
the Emperor of Heaven, I bid thee recross the river 
and return to thine old home. Once a year, on the 



TAKING THE WATERS 175 

seventh day of the seventh month, the herdsman may 
pay thee a visit, but on every other day in the year 
let him see to his herding and thou to thy weaving.' 
So the eirl returned to her old home, and the river 
flowed once more between herdsman and weaver ; but 
every year, when the feast of Tanabata comes round, 
husband and wife are happy together. Therefore, all 
who desire their children to be fortunate in their love 
ask fortunate stars to shine upon them. Now, the 
Emperor of heaven is God ; the celestial river is 
the Milky Way ; the herdsman is a star in Aquila, 
and the weaver is no other than Vega, brightest and 
luckiest of stars." 

I thanked the priest for his pretty legend, and 
cautiously approached the subject of religion, asking 
if he had studied Christianity, and to what cause he 
attributed its slow progress among his compatriots. 
He answered that two facts, in his opinion, contributed 
greatly to its want of success. The first was its extra- 
ordinary similarity to Buddhism. The ideas of a 
saviour of mankind resigning kingly power to become 
a wandering beggar ; of virginal motherhood ; of 
trinitarian godhead ; of the beauty of holiness and 
charity, love to men and kindness to animals ; of 
heaven and hell, as the populace conceived them, 
though in reality but intermediary stages to the ulti- 
mate Nirvana ; — these, and the miracles attributed to 
the rakan, or disciples of Buddha, which bore such 
remarkable resemblance to the wonders attributed to 
Christian saints, prayers for the dead, and monastic 
institutions ; — indeed, almost every salient doctrine of 
Christianity, as taught by priests of the Roman See, 
could be found with more or less modification in one 
or other of the numerous Buddhist sects. Why should 



176 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

a believer, then, apostatise from the faith of his fore- 
fathers to adopt a foreign creed so similar to, and yet 
so remote from, his own ? I found that his conceptions 
of Christianity were derived from a Romish priest, 
whom he had known in the island of Yezo. There 
was also a patriotic reason which struck me as rather 
unusual. The loyal Japanese believed that their 
Emperor was descended from the gods, and in the 
" Kojiki," which is regarded with the same reverence 
by them as the Bible by Europeans, many actions 
implying divine power are said to have been per- 
formed by such beings as the Heavenly- August-Sky- 
Luxuriant-Dragonfly- Youth, by the Great-Refulgent- 
Mountain- Dwelling Grandee, and by other kami, or 
superior ones ("them that are above us," Mrs. Dolly 
Winthrop would have said), to whom it was impossible 
to refuse the rank of deity. But the missionary said, 
" Thou shalt have none other gods but Me," which 
commandment imposed on the convert the necessity of 
becoming disloyal as well as an apostate. Yet, so 
tolerant were Buddhist and Shinto believers, that they 
did not subject a pervert to any sort of persecution. 
They practised and allowed entire freedom of belief. 
I replied that, granting his premisses, his conclusions 
were irresistible, and we parted excellent friends. 

At Akabane Junction I took leave of O Sen San, 
and met by appointment Mr. Richard Bates, whose 
acquaintance I had made about three months before in 
a curio dealer's shop at Kyoto. As we had agreed to 
take the waters of Akakura and Dogo together, I 
must apologise to him and to the reader for interpo- 
lating a brief description of this invaluable companion. 
His accomplishments were so numerous that I shrink 
from detailing them, but they were all of such a nature 



TAKING THE WATERS 177 

as to enhance the pleasure of travelling. He was a 
good cook, a good nurse, a good photographer ; he 
had the infallible flair of a curio hunter, and while 
less wily collectors were hesitating and beating about 
the bush, he would mark his prey — perhaps an old 
lacquer bowl, perhaps a bronze incense-burner — pounce 
on it, appreciate it, depreciate it, and by sheer force 
of will-power whisk it away to his lair before the 
dealer had made up his mind on the subject of price. 
He had two deficiencies, which were also virtues on 
occasion : he easily lost command of Japanese idiom 
and British phlegm. As he chose to consider me a 
fair linguist, it fell to my lot to translate arguments 
and accusations which were violently impossible to 
reproduce. However, I did my best, and was rewarded 
by many scenes of rare comedy. I often thought he 
would have done better to rely on himself, since 
discussion gave the seller time to invent incredible 
merits for his wares : at such times one glance or 
gesture of contemptuous disbelief inspired more respect 
for the buyer than languid protest, and that fiery 
fashion of raiding a china shop, of assessing the stock 
with the rapidity of a freebooter, and helping himself 
to anything that took his fancy, was so appalling to 
the deliberate, ceremonious vendor, that I believe 
goods were frequently yielded up in terror and a 
vague hope of appeasement. Not that Mr. Bates 
invariably got the better of the bargain. It is my 
belief that many geese sully with unsuspected falsity 
the whiteness of his swans. But for him every 
purchase was a swan, and, if you hinted otherwise, 
the crime of a Frenchman who should express an 
unpatriotic belief in Captain Dreyfus' innocence were 
light in comparison. I seldom committed that impru- 

M 



178 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

dence, but indulged a secret hope that one robbery 
balanced another, and that in the end the spoils of 
war were equally divided. Commercial habit does 
breed an instinct of distrust, which many tourists 
would find discomforting ; but this instinct was so 
agreeably modified in my fellow-countryman by gene- 
rosity and justice, that on the whole we made as 
many friends as enemies. If a landlord tried to cheat 
us, we told him so with reprehensible directness ; if 
he treated us well, we gave him a handsome present, 
and were as pleased as Diogenes would have been 
had he pursued his famous quest by the light of a 
Japanese lantern. 

Men, honest or dishonest, interested us but little 
that day, so absorbingly magnificent was the scenery. 
At Akakura we should be in sight of the Sea of Japan, 
while Tokyd faces the Pacific, so that our route ran 
north-west at an angle of about forty-five degrees, 
very nearly from coast to coast of the main island. 
The train would have to climb to a height of 3080 feet, 
crossing by means of the Usui Pass the volcanic back- 
bone of mountains which culminates in Asama-yama 
(8280 feet), the largest active volcano in the country. 
As we steamed slowly up the steep gradient to the 
grassy levels of New and Old Karuizawa, a series of 
twenty-six tunnels, bored at such short distances from 
each other as to resemble the disjointed sockets of a 
gigantic telescope, provided intermittent glimpses of 
jagged cliffs and terrific gorges. Far below lay green 
valleys and plains, threaded by silver rivulets and 
dotted with infinitesimal chalets ; beside us, densely- 
wooded slopes ; to left and right, on the horizon, 
Myyogi San and the Kotsuke peaks rose frowning 
to the sky. Many passengers descended at Karuizawa, 



TAKING THE WATERS 179 

for it stands on a lofty moor, where cows and wild 
flowers flourish to the joy of European children. 
Here the wise missionary builds his villa and trans- 
ports his family in the hot months. Donkeys and 
bicycles, bestridden by sturdy, blue-eyed youngsters, 
excite wonder in the meek pedestrian native, while 
papa, untrammelled by clerical attire, manfully mounts 
his five thousand feet and gazes into the red sul- 
phureous crater. Has not a local parodist thus cele- 
brated the annual exodus ? 

"When summer strikes Tsukiji 

With rays, which frame in gold 
That glory of Meiji, 

Our evangelic fold, 
To colder heights and calmer 

Each missionary flies; 
He loves Asama-yama, 

For nearer Heaven it lies." 

Alas ! the pagan mountain-god, who when he 
speaks will fulminate in fire and ashes, has been 
dumb for more than a hundred years. He allows the 
preachers of an alien creed to fill their lungs with his 
life-giving air ; he knows that their ingratitude will 
take the form of denying his divinity. " And yet God 
has not said a word." 

From Karuizawa, without breaking the journey at 
Ueda or Nagano, we advanced more quickly to lower 
ground, until the rapid torrent of Sekigawa, which 
divides the provinces of Shinshu and Echigo, arrested 
our attention and signified the nearness of our destina- 
tion. Leaving the railway at the little station of 
Taguchi, we ascended in rickshaws the zigzag path 
which conducts the pious to the sacred summit of 



180 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

Myoko-zan. This mountain, on which snowy patches 
still defied the August sun, is only one hundred feet 
lower than Asama-yama, if the alleged height, 8180 
feet, may be considered accurate. On the north-eastern 
slope of this easily-climbed volcano lies the hamlet of 
Akakura, from which rich plains stretch smoothly to 
the sea. On clear days the island of Sado is dimly 
visible. Hither come the farmers and traders of the 
western villages and towns, bringing sometimes their 
own provisions and demanding only sleeping accom- 
modation. The chief hotel, one-sixth of the size of 
Kindayu's, possessed a bath of its own, in which a 
dozen persons could bathe, but in all the others the 
guests paid a small fee to use the public baths, which 
dignified the single street with all the glory of carven 
cornice and stained glass. No other Europeans in- 
vaded this unfashionable spa, whose boiling springs, 
pellucid and blue, are credited by the peasantry with 
marvellous curative virtue. Foreign food is not to 
be procured, but we supplemented the rice and millet 
with tinned meat and stewed fruit. Thus fortified, we 
found no great difficulty in renouncing the more highly 
civilised distractions of Ikao. 

Geisha, dramatic reciters, jugglers, and itinerant 
musicians never reach such solitary heights. But, 
happily for us, the Bon-Odori, those antique dances, 
which should have been danced on All Souls' Day by 
the modernised Ikao folk, began in this neighbourhood 
two nights after our arrival. The landlord requested 
a contribution of forty sen (about fourpence), which 
we readily doubled, for the benefit of the performers. 
Then ensued a long wait, for, if Japanese city-people 
are dilatory, no adjective exists which could do justice 
to the country-people's contempt for celerity. Always 





Dancers at Feast of Lanterns. 



TAKING THE WATERS 181 

accurate, Murray very properly translates tadaima (im- 
mediately) by " any time between now and Christmas." 
First one lantern entered the courtyard ; after half- 
an-hour, another; one by one the young men and 
maidens assembled ; forty minutes more elapsed be- 
fore the musicians could be induced to appear : at 
last a flute-player and a drummer squatted on a mat 
in the centre, while the dancers circled slowly about 
them. Youths and girls wore a blue kerchief tied 
round the temples : they revolved, as in a game of 
" Follow my leader," without ever touching hands ; 
two steps forward, a half-turn, two steps back, and at 
irregular intervals a clapping of hands. Such was 
the simple measure. But the waving of arms and the 
graceful free gestures of these rustic coryphees were 
only less effective than the strange chanting, which 
rose or sank in volume as the number of participants 
increased or fell away. And what do you suppose 
they sang ? Something in the following vein, one 
might imagine : 

" While we loudly dance and sing, 
Spirits of our dead return, 
Guided, where the lanterns burn ; 
In the houses they will find 
Rice and water left behind ; 
Then sail in boats of straw away, 
Until next Bon-Odori day. 
Peasants, come and join the ring ! " 

Lines like these might emanate from an Arcadian 
singer of Fleet Street, but the daughters of Akakura 
must have lost all sense of the solemn festival they 
were affecting to celebrate. What they sang was 
this: 



1 82 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

" My lad is handsome, 
My lad is comely; 
He has no money ; 

Sad is my heart." 



And 



again : 



" Only to meet thee 
Troubled my heart is ; 
When the dance ends, I 

Ask to be thine." 

For custom in those parts has gradually established 
the right of Love to oust Death from his old preroga- 
tive. Dancing enables the lovers to find each other 
more easily than at other times. Courtship is the re- 
cognised sequel of the August revels so eagerly antici- 
pated, so long remembered. The love-sick maiden 
is the first to avow her passion, as little girls choose 
their- partners at a London party. Perhaps the gentle 
neglected ghosts bear no resentment, but are consoled 
by the hope that one day it will be their turn to live 
again as happily as these their descendants. 

Acquaintances were not as easily made in Akakura 
as in Ikao. The Kogakuro, as our hotel was called, 
contained but few other guests, and we occupied the 
two bedrooms which formed a sort of annexe, apart 
from the rest of the building. In the public baths at 
certain hours one was sure of meeting from twenty to 
thirty bathers of all ages and either sex, but they were 
extremely timid, kept silence when we entered, and 
did not respond to friendly overtures, so that we 
ceased to intrude upon their privacy. One old man, 
however, was very fond of calling and cross-examining 
the strangers. He had been a samurai, and at the 
age of seventy-six retained full vigour of mind and 
body. I should have given him ten years less. The 
landlord expressed his opinion that this visitor was a 



TAKING THE WATERS 183 

Government spy, and cautioned us against talking too 
freely. But, as it happened, the caution was super- 
fluous, for the dignified old fellow spoke in such queer 
dialect that I could understand very few of his remarks, 
and conversation soon lapsed into an interchange of 
bows and smiles. Only one other circumstance occurred 
in the Kogakuro, during the fortnight we spent there, 
to excite interest. One morning we found the cheery 
little landlord very depressed because a fraudulent guest 
had decamped during the night without paying his bill. 
Of course, he had only to shoot aside the wooden 
shutters, and the further feat of " shooting the moon " 
presented no difficulty. 

In this dearth of human subjects to study we ac- 
quired a habit of making daily expeditions to neigh- 
bouring localities, and were often repaid by beautiful 
sights. Within two hours' walking distance lies the 
lake of Nogiri, which is larger than Lake Haruna, but 
not so prettily environed. On a densely wooded islet 
stands a temple of Benten, "the goddess of luck, 
eloquence, and fertility," to which we were ferried 
across by an obliging schoolboy. Before it stand two 
immense cedars, of which one boasts a girth of twenty- 
seven feet. A long flight of steps leads from the shore 
of the island to the shrine, and, viewed from the 
summit of the steps, the belt of mountains which rim 
the horizon amply rewards the climber. Except for 
this view, however, Nogiri is in itself an ordinary 
unromantic piece of water. 

Far more exceptional is the important town of 
Takata, several hundred feet below the level of 
Taguchi, from which the railway descends a steep 
valley between mountain walls precipitously grand. 
Thousands of feet above snow is surmised, waterfalls 



i8 4 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

are conjectured, but between them and the crawling 
train push masses of impenetrable forest. Passing 
Arai, with its petroleum springs, we reach flatter 
ground and enter Takata, once the castle town of the 
Sakakibara family, which shared with three others the 
privilege of providing a regent during the minority of 
a Tokugawa Shogun. Traces of its old magnificence 
and of the Tokugawa patronage exist in a whole 
suburb of Buddhist temples, adorned in many cases 
with the Shogun s crest. They are large, richly orna- 
mented with good carving, and approached by avenues 
of cryptomeria. Since the Restoration and the Shin- 
toist reaction the fame of the Takata temples has 
decreased, but their splendour is only to be eclipsed in 
that part of the country by the celebrated Zenkqji at 
Nagano. At the back of one row of these temples 
runs a stream, spanned by as many little bridges. I 
never expected to see the college " backs " of Cam- 
bridge so admirably parodied. 

The railway line is here the dividing-line between 
sacred and profane. To the left of it the Buddhist 
monks traffic in holy wares ; to the right cotton and 
cotton-cloth and a species of muslin peculiar to the 
place compose the stock-in-trade of half the shop- 
keepers. The latter reside in homogeneous batches, 
as in feudal times : all the mercers in one part, all the 
curio-dealers in another, and so on. But the most 
curious feature in the town is the wooden project- 
ing roof conterminous with the street on either side, 
which enables the pedestrian to perambulate the main 
thoroughfare under shelter of an arcade. These are 
not found in the eastern or central provinces, and 
have been adopted on account of heavy snow-drifts, 
which in winter render the roads impassable. We had 



TAKING THE WATERS 185 

cause to be grateful for this Echigo custom, as it 
enabled us to explore the town without being drenched 
by a heavy, inopportune shower. 

Our longest excursion was to Naoetsu, a rising sea- 
port at the mouth of the Sekigawa and the present 
terminus of the Tokyo and Karuizawa line. Though 
it has long been a port of call for steamers which ply 
on the western coast, it presented the appearance of 
a new, unfinished town. Two months before a dis- 
astrous fire had consumed three-fourths of the houses, 
which were rising phcenix-like from the charred relics 
of their own ddbris. But fires are so common in these 
flimsy, inflammable habitations that one ends by re- 
garding them as inevitable, as instruments of the 
universal law of reincarnation, which applies equally 
to men and to the works of men's hands. Every 
twenty years the two great temples of Ise are demo- 
lished and reconstructed as antique ordinance requires. 
Humbler buildings cannot expect to escape the fiat 
of periodic resurrection. There is, however, little of 
interest at Naoetsu, unless it be the hardy fisher-folk 
and field-labourers. We drove to a fine temple of 
Kwannon and some tea-houses surrounded by tasteful 
gardens overlooking the sea. But we had seen their 
analogues before : never had we seen in Japan, except 
in the case of the wrestlers, such sturdy human frames 
as these men and women of Echigo display. Husband 
and wife, naked to the waist, strain beneath a common 
yoke and draw ponderous carts to market. Their 
bronzed busts and blue cotton hakama make grateful 
patches of colour between the hot sky and dusty road. 
My photographic friend could not resist the chance of 
" taking " an Amazonian mother disdainfully recum- 
bent on bent elbow and suckling her child. As she 



1 86 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

lay supine and heavy-featured, she resembled a Beau- 
delairian giantess in 

"The deep division of prodigious breasts 
The solemn slope of mighty limbs asleep." 

Could she really be of the same race as the fragile, 
geisha-fairies of the Myako-odori ? Her photograph 
had better claim perhaps to the title of miyage than the 
crystal and jade kakemono weights, which we bought 
from a specious hawker on the cliffs. He who would 
conform to Japanese etiquette, with its charming code 
of trifling generosities, is sorely perturbed by this 
problem of miyage. The dictionary defines it clearly 
enough : " A present made by one returning home from 
a journey, or by one coming from another place — 
generally of some rare or curious production of another 
place" Now, I was perpetually " coming from another 
place,'* and the search before I left it for "some rare 
or curious production," which would serve as a present 
for Ashikaga or Tokyo friends, baffled at times even 
my insatiable curiosity. The hawker's streaked pebbles 
were pretty enough as pledges of transitory kindness, 
but the souvenirs most vividly stamped on the tablets 
of remembrance by the glaring sunlight of Naoetsu in 
August show a vision of brown sea-goddesses against 
a turquoise sea. 



Ill 

The last lotus had shed its stately coronal of broad 
petals before our short stay at Akakura came to an 
end : business detained us in the capital throughout 
the September rains ; when we determined to take the 
waters of Dogo October was well advanced, and the 
hills were already flushed with reddening maple-leaves. 
As we sat on " the bridge that is joined to heaven" 
and gazed into the maple-lined ravine, which is crossed 
and crowned by the monastery of Tofukuji, we seemed 
to be watching the slow sepulture of that lingering 
summer beneath a pall of fiery foliage. Yet we knew 
that, though there on the hills around Kyoto autumn 
was mistress of the woods, there still reigned on 
the sheltered shores of the Inland Sea a summer of 
St. Martin, the diaphanous ghost of summer, mild and 
tender in heat and hue. There and then our trip was 
planned. We would skirt its northern coast from 
Kobe to Hiroshima, spend a day in the holy island 
of Miyajima, and thence take boat to Mitsugahama, the 
nearest port to the Dogo baths, whence a second boat 
would take us back to Kobe. Thus the circuit of the 
eastern waters of the sea between Shikoku and the 
Main Island might be accomplished in a leisurely ten 
days. For the moment, however, we might as well 



1 88 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

fall in with the spirit of soft melancholy which all 
persons of sensibility were bound to assume in the 
presence of maple-leaves, unless centuries of minor 
poetry should be coarsely disregarded. What season 
could be fitter for making pilgrimage to Sen-yuji, the 
burial-place of the Emperors ? It is true that a sin- 
ister sentence in the guide-book said, " As neither the 
tombs nor the various treasures of the temple are 
shown, there is little object in visiting it." But for all 
we knew, the warning might be piously designed to 
save a sacred privacy from the more vulgar type of 
tourist, whose eyes are blind to immaterial things. At 
any rate, that was the time, if ever, to test the mean- 
ing of Murray's discreet dissuasion. 

It certainly required no slight effort of imaginative 
sympathy to appraise at its historic worth a most 
paltry wooden bridge, devoid of grace or ornament, 
which seemed a rustic plank in comparison with the 
Shoguns red -lacquer Mi Hashi at Nikko, so finely 
poised and firmly flung across the foaming Daiyagawa. 
But that was worthy of the military usurpers, who 
took the substance of sovereignty and left its shadow 
to their nominal sovereigns, while this is only Yume 
no Uki-hashi, the Floating Bridge of Dreams, aptly 
symbolic of the recluse rots faineants, absorbed in 
sentiment and moonshine. Here, we are told, as the 
midnight mourners bore along their dead emperor to 
sleep with his fathers, they would throw down a little 
fruit, some libatory cakes, into the whispering rivulet. 
Then steep and dark before them rose the narrow 
road, which terminates in a large hollow hewn out 
of the hillside to be the cradle of the sceptred heirs 
of the sun-goddess. Like the palaces in which they 
lived, their houses of death are clean and august. 



TAKING THE WATERS 189 

The shrines are of plain white wood, of the sort else 
used only in Shinto temples; the paths, scrupulously 
kept, are strewn with small white pebbles and wind 
spirally up mound after mound into the shadow of 
thick pines. Six centuries of royalty are buried in 
that white city with no other token of their rank 
than strict seclusion and austere simplicity. Each 
group of tombs is enclosed by a high wall, and on 
every gate is the sixteen -petalled chrysanthemum. 
There is no glitter of rnarble or gold, as in so many 
burial-grounds of monarchy, no fulsome eulogy on 
staring tablet, but, shrouded in the same mysterious 
obscurity as had enveloped for the nation their half- 
monastic lives, the Tenshi, sons of heaven, seem 
fittingly interred in that precise maze of ordered 
tranquillity half-way between the sky and their dearly- 
loved Kyoto. 

I could not bring myself to pass Osaka on the 
way to Kobe without visiting the temple of Tennoji, 
where Mr. Lafcadio Hearn gathered some of his 
happiest "Gleanings in Buddhist Fields." Though 
the children's chapel has been so touchingly described 
by him that any other writer may well shrink from 
following in his footsteps, a rapid impression of a 
fugitive glimpse will be pardoned and more than 
justified if it should induce the reader to re-read 
his more elaborate account. An enormous temple, 
Tennoji lies on the very outskirts of the town, and, 
after traversing innumerable canals, one is still a little 
puzzled to locate the indo-no-kane among wide courts 
grouped about the central colonnade. After some 
searching we discerned a man and woman kneeling 
on the threshold of a shrine, in which a wrinkled 
priest in shabby brown vestments was reciting a 



190 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

prayer. Drawing nearer, we noticed that the man 
was weeping and the woman held in her hands a 
baby's kimono of brightly coloured material, which 
soon after she handed to the priest with a few copper 
coins. He took the garment, folded it carefully, and 
placed it on a shelf. Then, raising our eyes from 
the personages in this pathetic scene, we observed 
for the first time the chapel itself. The altar bore 
no image of Buddha flanked by gilt lotus or vases 
of natural flowers, but from cloth to ceiling it was 
covered with a bewildering pyramid of dead toys. 
Almond-eyed mannikins and stiff-jointed maidens, 
dolls of all classes, richly or penuriously dressed, 
seemed to stretch imploring arms and to fix halluci- 
nating eyes on the beholder ; drums and trumpets, 
paper ships and indiarubber balls, masks and picture- 
books and rattles — all the motley companions of 
vanished children were huddled together like contorted 
imps in a chaotic pantomime. Massed and motionless 
in the twilight of their recess, they had the air of dead 
things — the shells and figments of faithful toys, whose 
spirits had followed the babies' souls to paradise, that 
the little hands which had clasped them night and day 
in "this miserable, fleeting world " might not be quite 
comfortless in their strange new nursery. The lesson 
would not be lost on heartbroken mothers who parted 
here from their own most cherished hopes more fragile 
than these brittle playthings. The roof was hung, the 
side shelves were piled, with tiny dresses, pendent or 
folded ; and, most curious of all, the bell-rope, that 
summoned Shotoku Taishi, the saintly prince, to con- 
duct the dead infants to God was strung with over- 
lapping woollen bibs — yellow and red and green — the 
clumsy counterparts, these, of aureoles. But while 



TAKING THE WATERS 191 

we had been enthralled by this canonisation of dolldom 
the priest had been writing, and now handed to the 
mother a slip of paper attached to a thin wand of 
bamboo. Bowing low, she took the paper, pressed it 
to her forehead, and crossed the enclosure to the stone 
chamber known as the Tortoise Tower, for there those 
who look down over the circular balustrade into a 
central cavity will perceive clear water running from 
the mouth of a stone tortoise. Into that sacred stream 
which flows from earth to heaven the paper drops, 
being inscribed with the new name which is bestowed 
on every believer after death ; and the poor woman 
goes away not a little comforted, for now at least 
her child is sure of an orthodox introduction to 
paradise. Thus neither babe nor emperor is exempt 
from etiquette, whether life or death be the master of 
ceremonies. Inequalities persist in. the very funeral 
rites, though in their hearts the celebrants must feel 
that the geisha's flower-song is of universal appli- 
cation : 

" Peonies, roses, 
Faded, are equal; 
Only while life blooms 

Differ the flowers." 

The beauties of the Inland Sea have been so often 
and so graphically described, that detailed praise is 
superfluous. Every one has heard of the thousands 
of islets, on which are perched villages, villas, and 
pines innumerable ; of the hillsides, geometrically sub- 
divided into rice-fields ; of the junks with pleated and 
divided sails, which dart like white birds through the 
exquisite blue plain ; of the strange mirage, which 
throws upon the sky at certain hours, when the 
heaven above and the waters beneath melt into a vast 



1 92 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

silver-grey mirror, the shapes of phantom archipelagoes 
suspended in mid- air. To those who have seen it and 
are familiar with the fans, the netsukes, and the tea- 
cups, which reproduce favourite designs of pictorial 
art, only one adjective, vague yet precise, will occur : 
this pocket-Mediterranean is essentially Japanese. It 
is an ornamental piece of prettiness, designed by the 
Celestial Painter in one of his most Japanese moods, 
for in it you will find the cardinal characteristic of 
the national taste, its subordination of the sublime 
to the dainty, of big effect to graceful detail, its in- 
evitable preference for miniature and vignette. One 
critic has said that such art " is small in great things, 
great in small things " ; another, that the Japanese 
" admire scenes, but not scenery." Both these dicta 
could be applied to the Inland Sea, were it not that 
Europeans admire it more than the natives, but the 
charm which it exerts is undeniably akin to the 
spell of those workers in silk or clay or ivory who 
achieve a maximum of beauty in a minimum of 
space. The Norwegian fiords, the Italian lakes, the 
^gean and Adriatic Seas, all present at some point 
or other some grandiose aspect, but the channels 
which lie between Shikoku, Kyushu, and the Main 
Island never threaten or impose ; they are simply a 
soft fluid setting for precious stones of varying size 
and colour. 

Most famous of these insular jewels is Miyajima. 
As no boats were running thither from Kobe, we 
travelled by the San-yo railway as far as Onomichi, 
skirting the coast so closely that we hardly once lost 
sight of the sea. Though sorely tempted to break the 
journey for the purpose of visiting the great feudal 
castles of Himeji and Okayama, we pressed on until 



TAKING THE WATERS 193 

the bay of Fukuyama, glittering like molten fire in a 
superb sunset, was hailed with rapture and relief, for 
the train journey had been hot and long, and we 
welcomed the prospect of repose. One of those 
delicious, indolent evenings, when the traveller reclines 
on piled cushions, drinking tea or sakd, until he be 
roused from waking dreams by the low laughter of 
attendant musum,i> demanding permission to strew the 
beds and light the lanterns, would have formed an 
excellent climax to that fatiguing day. But I never 
dared anticipate repose in the company of Mr. Bates, 
who was apt to burst into sudden flame on the 
slightest provocation. And during that week provo- 
cation lurked in two hotels out of three. The guide- 
book describes Onomichi as "a bustling, prosperous 
place " : it may be " prosperous " ; it is undeniably 
" bustling." We were barely out of the train and had 
just set foot in the straggling main street, when two 
hotel touts seized us by the arm, jovially aired some 
broken English, and deposited us with our bags on the 
steps of a large hotel. " Ask the price ! " shouted Mr. 
Bates, " ask the price ! I have never yet entered 
an hotel without knowing what I have to pay. Ask 
the price ! " I complied, but the landlord with soft, 
evasive phrases, wafted us to an upper floor, while my 
companion smouldered. Suddenly a chair and table 
appeared. " Take them away ! " he shouted, " take 
them away ! I know the trick. They will make us 
pay double, and I refuse to be swindled." This time 
we insisted on knowing the charges, and the proprietor, 
as we expected, demanded three times as much as we 
had now become accustomed to pay. We protested. 
He assured us that " honourable guests from Yokohama 
and Kobe " never paid less, but we replied that Kobe 

N 



i 9 4 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

and Yokohama were nothing to us, who always paid 
Japanese prices for Japanese accommodation. Finding 
him impervious to reason, we shouldered our bags and 
marched out of the house. Then he consented to 
receive his due, and reinstalled us on our own terms. 
But the hotel girls were cross and discourteous, the 
native visitors noisy, the food bad and badly served. 
As a last attempt to get the better of us, the landlord 
affirmed that now there was no chance of a boat being 
despatched to Miyajima before the following afternoon, 
and that the information we had gathered from a 
casual shopkeeper the night before, that one would 
sail at eight o'clock in the morning, was erroneous. 
But Mr. Bates had been compelled twice before to 
spend an extra day in one of these seaside hotels, on 
the plea that the boat had gone, or would only go, 
apparently, at the landlord's bidding. Smiling, there- 
fore, but without hesitation, we made our own way to 
the wharf at seven o'clock and took our own tickets, 
that there might be no collusion between the hotel 
boy and the official who booked passengers. At 
eight o'clock we steamed away from Onomichi. 
Through clustered islands our tiny steamer threaded 
in and out, until Kure appeared, an important arsenal 
at the foot of the Aki Hills. Here we discharged 
some hundreds of copper slabs, and while that slow 
operation was in progress were amused by the 
animation which prevailed on the men-of-war and on 
the numerous sampans plying between them and the 
shore. About four miles away on the island of Etajima 
stands the Imperial Naval College. When this and 
other points of interest had been indicated to us by 
polite fellow-passengers, our attention was riveted on 
the labourers, who jerked the slabs from hand to hand 



TAKING THE WATERS 195 

and piled them on the floor of a barge in symmetrical 
heaps. The " chantey " which they sang to lighten 
the labour was simple and monotonous, consisting of 
two words, which sounded absurdly like " Hong 
Kong" and "Shanghai" repeated ad infinitum. At 
last we continued our voyage, but were again subjected 
to a long delay at Hiroshima, where we landed and 
beguiled the ' tedium of waiting by chaffering with 
bum-boat women for sweets and chestnuts. The 
town stands far back from, the water, and a causeway 
three miles in length runs out into the spacious 
harbour, formed by the delta of the Otagawa. As 
this is the most busy commercial centre west of 
Kobe, there was plenty of movement : rows of boats 
were loading and unloading, rickshaws driving up per- 
petually from the town, while shrill-voiced youngsters 
did a brisk trade in fruit and vegetables. At the risk 
of being left behind, my indefatigable companion 
made a dash for the distant shops, and returned 
triumphant, hugging in one arm two loaves of bread 
and in the other a dilapidated Buddha, whose grimy 
gilt was irresistible to the collector. His disgust when 
I guessed the exact price he had paid (about five yen, 
or ten shillings), and refused to believe that it could be 
worth a penny more to any one, was too deep for 
words. 

Darkness had fallen when Miyajima was reached, 
and as we were rowed ashore the outlines of temple 
and grove were shrouded in gloom. Only the colossal 
torii loomed black against the shimmering water, while 
all that lay behind was covered by the shadow of 
climbing forests. We took supper at an hotel near the 
entrance to the temple-grounds, and were then con- 
ducted by two of the landlord's daughters on a tour of 



196 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

inspection through the main street. We discovered a 
curio-shop, of which the proprietress set such extrava- 
gant value on her wares that Mr. Bates at once was 
lured into hot discussion. Night interposed, and at 
an early hour, before I was well awake, I heard the 
resumption of battle below my balcony. The pro- 
prietress with gentle laughter and firm accent extolled 
her treasures ; the would-be purchaser, in nervous tones 
which tingled with cupidity and despair, attempted in 
vain to cheapen them. His patience was rapidly 
giving way, and very soon he cried out for his inter- 
preter to descend and assault the enemy. But this 
time I deliberately closed ears and eyes, feigning sleep. 
I had not come to that holy island to fight for curios, 
and though I had attained the knack of giving the lie 
courteous to crafty dealers, I shrank from translating 
rough language to a woman. Fidelity was routed by 
chivalry. They finished the struggle without my 
intervention, and victory remained with the lady. 

When I descended, the defeated combatant was 
seeking consolation in photography. And seldom had 
his camera been confronted with more beautiful pic- 
tures. The winding valleys and soaring rocks con- 
verge at an elevation of more than a thousand feet on 
a little shrine, in which has been burning a sacred 
fire for more than a thousand years. From the 
opposite shore, as one traces the salient features of 
this evergreen island, all the details — streamlet and 
temple-roof, cliff and maple and pine — merge in a 
majestic harmony of serried line and luxuriant colour. 
But on the island itself one is drawn, as by a magnet, 
to the great temple of Itsukushima Hime, which, 
being partly built over the water on piles, seems at 
high tide, like the Breton vision of Is, to rise from the 



TAKING THE WATERS 197 

depths of the sea. At all times the torii, or wooden 
archway, which stands before this Shinto temple is 
partially submerged, and Hiroshigi in his fifty-four 
meisho, or views of Japan, gives such prominence 
to it, that the long galleries and avenue of stone 
lanterns, as well as the central hall, from which the 
colonnades diverge like wooden arms, bent to embrace 
the incoming tide, are barely suggested. Daimyo, 
Shdgun, and Emperor have vied with one another in 
decorating this temple, and the successive chapels are 
hung with paintings by famous artists from the six- 
teenth century to the present time. Many quaint 
customs, formerly regarded as conducive to the purity 
of a holy place, are still observed. Neither death nor 
birth is allowed to sully its eternal immunity from 
change. When either is anticipated, the patient is 
ferried across to the mainland. Dogs are forbidden, 
but deer roam the streets and feed fearlessly from the 
hands of tourist or pilgrim. All day the temple-courts 
are thronged with worshippers, and sometimes at 
night, when a pious noble or rich American affords 
himself the sight, the lit lanterns of stone or bronze, 
which line the approaches to the temple, define the 
interlacing courts and bridges in traceries of fire. But 
this illumination we had not the good fortune to see. 

Another temple on a neighbouring hill, though less 
beautiful, is equally unique. It consists of a vast plat- 
form, from which spring twenty-four massive columns 
to support the roof, whose only ornamentation on the 
interior, if ornamentation it can be called, is a frieze of 
wooden spoons, some small, others enormous : they 
are nailed there, or on the columns, as the donor's 
caprice dictates, and confer comparative immortality at 
trifling cost, for each is inscribed with an autograph. 



198 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

Thus the ingenious Japanese have found a way of 
diverting and profiting by that first infirmity of ignoble 
minds, which robs St. Paul's of dignity and desecrates 
Westminster Abbey with such legends as " Peter 
Jones from Hampstead " and " Eliza Smith of Bethnal 
Green." Much impressed by this strange custom, 
each of us bought a spoon and, veiling our vulgarity in 
Latin, suspended this device from the right-hand pillar 
of the porch : 

Venit, Vidit, Oravit, 
O. E. R. B. 

For two months I had been haunted by visions of 
the bridge- Kintaikyo, as it seems to have haunted the 
landscape-painters of Japan. I remembered it as one 
of the most remarkable in Hokusai's series of " A 
Hundred Bridges " ; I had another marvellous draw- 
ing of the five arches overwhelmed by a snow-storm 
and apparently detached from both land and water, for 
Hiroshigi understands the isolation of his subject from 
irrelevant detail as few others, slaves of perspective, 
would dare imagine. If uneducated eyes took the 
picture to represent a peal of blue bells, sprinkled with 
cotton-wool and straddling through space, so much 
the worse for uneducated eyes. But at any rate, 
being so near, I resolved to dispel vision by looking on 
reality, and spent half a day in visiting Iwakuni. We 
were obliged to leave our rickshaws at the foot of 
Kato Kiy omasa's towering temple that overlooks the 
almost waterless bed of the Nishikigawa, for none but 
a pedestrian could climb the huge arcs, thirty feet 
long, which spring in five bounds from shore to shore, 
like the curves of a switchback railway. Then the 
faithful camera was brought into play, and a bevy of 




Kintaikyo Bridge. 



TAKING THE WATERS 199 

perplexed ducks were hustled into the foreground, with 
the inevitable result of attracting several loiterers to 
share with them the glory of being photographed. 
These had to be politely expelled, and in the end 
several excellent views were taken. But not one of 
them conveys the fantastic liberty of that flying bridge 
so realistically as the snowscape of Hiroshigi. 

Lulled by the honest countenance of our courteous 
landlady into misplaced confidence, we were astonished 
by her presenting on our departure a bill more exor- 
bitant than that of the hotel-keeper of Onomichi. We 
expostulated, and repeated the terms named by her 
clerk the night before. At once the amount was cut 
down to half and the lesser sum accepted with no 
gratitude or resentment. Mr. Bates is furious, and 
delivers a lecture on probity ; but I cannot bring 
myself to regard these bland banditti, who extort 
without violence and restore the booty without a 
murmur, as on a par with the cheating innkeepers of 
other lands. Their motive is probably either religious 
or patriotic, perhaps both. Some one must have told 
them that foreigners are only permitted by autoch- 
thonous gods to visit Japan on condition of enriching 
its inhabitants. By overcharging the tourist, then, 
they are pleasing their gods and serving their country. 
Their compatriots are protected by legal prices, 
publicly posted in every inn, but they know that the 
barbarian cannot read official notices, and quixotic 
indeed would it be to enlighten him. To me such 
na tf graceful swindling (when exposed and thwarted) 
is more delightful than churlish, prosaic probity. 

Returning to Hiroshima, we thence took steamer to 
Mitsugahama, one of the chief ports in the island of 
Shikoku, whose mineral baths were the goal of our 



200 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

voyage. Had time allowed, we would gladly have 
visited all the four provinces of this magnificent island 
— provinces which in earlier times were known as 
" Lovely Princess," " Prince Good Boiled Rice," " The 
Princess of Great Food," and " The Brave Good 
Youth." But we had only leisure to do homage to 
Iyo-Ehime, the Lovely Princess, who amply justified 
her title by the loveliness of her domain. Between 
her territory and that of Tosa or Take-yori-wake, 
the Brave Good Youth, whose sons are to-day the 
staunchest advocates of progress, runs a mountain 
ridge, varying in height from three to four thousand 
feet, so richly covered with forests that not only are 
the pines, maples, and alders as plentiful as elsewhere, 
but with these is intermingled an endless host of 
beeches, oaks, and horse-chestnuts. Except in the 
neighbourhood of Akakura, we had not seen a finer 
stretch of mountain-scenery. 

But we never came close to these wooded heights, 
for Dogo is only a short distance from the seashore, 
and is reached in half-an-hour by what I can only 
describe as a toy train. We crept into a first-class 
carriage, and just managed to avoid bumping our heads 
against the low-pitched roof. The fare was on the 
same scale as the compartments, for the cost of the 
ticket-was three sen (farthings). The rickshaw-men 
were polite and reasonable, the landlord of the Iwai-ya 
both affable and honest ; in a word, we had left the 
track of long-suffering and all-corrupting tourists, and 
had reached one of those districts, so pleasant to 
discover, where manners are as yet unspoiled by 
money. Delighted with our lot, we settled down to 
three days of paradise regained. 

Our first care was to discover the bath-house. In 



TAKING THE WATERS 201 

front of the hotel rose a mansion of pine, surrounded 
by iron railings of curious pattern, a line of storks in 
zigzag flight, and surmounted by a stork of gold with 
outstretched wings. The Governor's house, we 
thought, or perhaps a court of justice, resplendent 
with carven symbol to impress the natives with rever- 
ence for the new rdgime. But no : this was the 
principal bath-house. As we passed from storey to 
storey and remarked the beauty of rafter and balus- 
trade, my companion, who speaks with knowledge, 
declared that he had never seen such superb carpentry. 
In many of the chambers were flowers and kakemono 
by modern painters ; in short, we had found a more 
lordly palace of bathing than even Ikao could boast. 
The baths were of granite and the dressing-rooms hung 
with silken curtains. As we had paid the highest 
tariff, ten sen (about twopence-halfpenny), before 
entering the bath, we were served by daintily-robed 
waitresses with cherry-blossom-and-water, a rather 
saline concoction prepared from the national flower. 
When we issued from the hot salt waters the same 
attendants brought tea and cigarettes. Enchanted 
with our first experience of DogO fashions, we returned 
to the hotel and demanded of the landlord what other 
sights the town possessed. 

The public garden, the wood-carvers' shops, the 
big temple of Okuni-nushi and Sukuna-bikona, which 
crowns a hill on the outskirts of the town, were duly 
visited, and pronounced inferior to those we had seen 
elsewhere. But O Yoshi San informed us at dinner 
that every stranger who came to Dogo was considered 
unlucky if he departed without seeing and hearing two 
beautiful sisters, geisha of shining notoriety. We 
sent a summons at once, and by good luck it happened 



202 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

that one hour of their deeply engaged evening was 
at our disposal. Our room was brightened up with 
flowers and sweetmeats, sakd and cigarettes were 
lavishly provided, cushions set and lanterns lit. The 
geisha were announced by their professional names — 
White Jewel and Young Butterfly — made smiling 
obeisance to the " honourable strangers," and took 
their seats in the centre of the room, while their 
duenna, the Katti Lanner of Shikoku, whose pupils 
had spread the fame of their teacher all over Japan, 
remained respectfully in the doorway. The age of 
Young Butterfly cannot have exceeded thirteen years. 
She wore a white silk kimono, heavily embroidered 
with gold, and gold dragons on a green sash chased 
one another round her slender waist. In her coiffure 
was an ivory pin, terminating in a miniature birdcage, 
from which a red tassel fluttered defiantly. Her 
pantomimic dances (in which she required occasional 
prompting) represented the wooing of a coy damsel 
and the capture of a standard in the Chinese war ; 
her childish emphasis of amorous and martial gesture 
was extremely piquant. White Jewel was, however, 
not only a clever artist but a most intelligent woman. 
About ten years older than her sister, she was dressed 
far more simply. Her kimono was of black crdpon, 
her sash of iris-coloured brocade, and her hair had no 
ornament but a purple iris. She sang, like all her 
tribe, with nasal intonation and harsh lower notes, 
but her smile when she talked was as bright as her 
wits, quick to grasp my questions and explain the 
meaning of her songs. Indeed, I owe to White Jewel 
some of the prettiest instances of popular dodoitsu 
collected in a previous chapter. She was very pleased 
with her calling, which she had found lucrative, and 



TAKING THE WATERS 203 

was not offended by the assertion that most people 
considered geisha to be like cats, sly and treacherous ; 
otherwise, how was it they had acquired the nickname 
of " Nekko " or " Pussie " ? She replied by singing a 
quatrain which conveys in the original two meanings 
for every line : 

'Ware of the Pussie ! 
Pussie, seen smoothing 
Coat of striped velvet, 

Trimming her claws. 

'Ware of the geisha ! 
Geisha, seen folding 
Soft-striped yukata, 

Binding her shoes. 

At this point Mr. Bates manifested a desire to bask 
in the rays of White Jewel, and completely ousted me 
from favour by a fraudulent piece of palmistry. As he 
traced the lines in her sensitive hand he discovered 
pledges of prodigious prosperity — rich lovers, in- 
creased fame, long life, and ultimate marriage to a 
deputy-judge ! The only prediction which missed 
the mark was a prophecy of twin daughters, who 
should rival and perpetuate the glory of White Jewel 
and Young Butterfly. The Japanese consider it rather 
gross and catlike to have more than one child at a 
time. White Jewel made a grimace of playful disgust 
and offered to sing another song, which would be the 
last, as other houses had engaged her to appear at ten 
o'clock and at eleven. It was exactly half-past ten ; 
if she went now, her punctuality would be unimpugned. 
So she took leave of us with a chansonette as dainty 
as her own personality. 



2o 4 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

Light Love. 

If love be thoughtless, 
Then is love shallow; 
Though love be shallow, 
Do not forget. 

We devoted the second day of our visit to Mat- 
suyama, the capital of the province of " Lovely 
Princess," not more than four miles from Dogo. 
There is little to be seen there, however, except the 
castle, one of the largest in Japan, and some excellent 
curio-shops, in which the zeal of my companion was 
rewarded by some precious finds. Leaving him to 
indulge his master-passion, which I found less amusing 
than the pursuit of living curios, I laid siege to the 
castle. At the bureau where tickets are to be obtained 
many officials referred me to one another, and re- 
quested me to wait until certain formalities were com- 
plied with. After two hours' stolid patience the fortress 
capitulated, and I was assigned to the care of a gallant 
sergeant, who spoke a little English and proved a most 
competent guide. From the summit of the tower a 
fine panorama was visible : below us the fertile Mat- 
suyama plain stretched away to the shore of the Inland 
Sea, and on the opposite side the horizon was shut in 
by forest and mountain. To tell the truth, my con- 
ductor's account of the castle's history, as illustrated 
by its structure and some surviving weapons of war, 
interested me much less than his own exploits. For 
had he not with his own hand slain five Chinese braves 
in the battle of Port Arthur ? My compliments on his 
heroism must have touched his heart, for, turning 
suddenly, he grasped my hand and cried : " I like you. 
You shall be my friend. I will dine with you." This 
abrupt proposition at once solved for me the embar- 



TAKING THE WATERS 205 

rassing question of remuneration. I could not press 
surreptitious silver into the palm of this obliging lover 
of England and slayer of Chinamen, but a friendly- 
dinner would put us on terms of franker intimacy. So 
we descended the winding path from the ramparts, 
crossed the moat, and marched home to the Iwai-ya. 
We drank cherry-blossom and sakd ; we bathed, and 
dined off the best fare which our host could provide ; 
we discussed the character of native and foreigner, 
arriving at the conclusion that, while the best type of 
Japanese inhabited Shikoku, the wiliest and worst of 
foes were Russian. We had not time to go deeply 
into ethnology, for at half-past eight my guest buckled 
on his sword and with many protestations of affectionate 
regard returned to barracks. 

No shadow of trickery marred our joyous remini- 
scences of Dogo. When we left the landlord presented 
a bill so ridiculously low, that we bestowed on him as 
much again in tea-money. Not to be outdone, he 
loaded our departing rickshaws with four bottles of 
beer. And the photographer, whose camera was worth 
a fortune to him as a means of gratifying all sorts and 
conditions of men, took an excellent group of that 
smiling host and his cheery household. 

The voyage to Kobe was no less agreeable. We 
had for fellow-passenger a distinguished middle-aged 
officer, who had fought on the losing sides in the re- 
volution and the Satsuma rebellion headed by Saigo 
Takamori, whose grave we had seen at Miyajima. 
Experience had long since convinced him of the folly 
of anti-progressive movements, and he realised as 
clearly as the most democratic reformer that national 
security was best served by adopting Western ideas. 
We had no idea of his rank until a small boat put off at 



206 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

Tadotsu, in which were three officers of inferior grade, 
who had come to escort him ashore. From his seat in 
the boat he waved his hand genially to us, while the men 
pulled in to harbour, but the three officers remained 
standing, as unmoved by the shock of the waves as 
by the rattle of Chinese artillery. 

Kdbe received us, weary and late, with hospitable 
arms. In that prosperous port, so rapidly distancing 
Yokohama in commercial importance, an English 
colony is solidly entrenched with pews and cricket- 
bats and pianos. I went to the club, and was at once 
in England. The Saturday Review was reviewing and 
The World revolving on the same lines as when I 
was last in Fleet Street. Mr. Bernard Shaw was still 
unmasking demerits in Shakespeare, while Mr. William 
Archer was inventing merits for American comic 
opera. In a moment of nostalgia I sauntered into a 
well-filled church, whose congregation were listening 
with rapture to a beautiful rendering of Gounod's 
" There is a Green Hill": finally, I learned at a 
friend's table that a cricket-match between the ladies 
and gentlemen of Kobe was the burning topic of the 
week. Between Mr. Bernard Shaw and Buddha 
(vegetarians both), between Gounod and geisha, be- 
tween batting and bathing, lay the gulf which sepa- 
rates the hard-hitting West from the lotus-loving 
East. I could not bridge the gulf without a violent 
effort. In fact, I felt a little ashamed on mixing with 
my fellow-countrymen, so pious and strenuous and 
practical. While they had been working and playing 
as only Britons can, I had utterly forgotten that any 
country except Japan could enthral and stimulate. I 
had been taking the waters — of Lethe. 



PLAYING WITH FIRE 



PLAYING WITH FIRE 

I 

This is the love-story of Rene Beauregard and 
O Maru San. It does not illustrate the cynical 
conceit of a French dandy, aesthetically explaining 
and profaning love to amuse an indelicate public, nor 
does it demonstrate the folly of mixed marriages, in 
which nuptial ceremonies, high-flown speeches, adul- 
tery, and suicide are hypocritically served up to suit 
the British palate. It is the straightforward story of 
an ordinary attachment in the Far East between two 
rather bad and rather good friends of mine, whose 
notions of "good" and "bad" as translated into 
deeds were lax, but, in their eyes and in that region, 
not absolutely damnable. 

M. Rene Beauregard had been in Tokyo about a 
fortnight, when I found him one evening at a print- 
seller's shop in the Ginza, surrounded by an inquisitive 
crowd of admirers and much embarrassed by inability 
to declare his meaning in Japanese. He was accom- 
panied by an hotel-boy, who, knowing no French 
words but Oui, monsieur, and Bon jour> recognised 
me with relief and solicited assistance. I was able to 
extricate him from the curiosity of the bystanders and 

o 



210 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

the plurality of prices to our mutual satisfaction, for 
we returned together to the Metropole, the richer by 
some rare prints and the promise of congenial com- 
panionship. Literary reminiscence furnished many 
bonds of common interest. We had witnessed, it 
seemed, simultaneously several incidents which marked 
the waning of old and the rising of new constellations 
in the firmament of French art. The premiere of 
Rodenbach's " Le Voile " and Rostand's " Les Roman- 
esques," the funeral of Paul Verlaine, the students' 
repudiation of Brunetiere and acclamation of Zola at 
the Sorbonne, the banquets to Puvis de Chavannes 
and Emile Verhaeren, had strangely enough united us 
in the same company without opportunity of introduc- 
tion. But community of tastes counts for less in 
friendship than charm of character. What particularly 
pleased me in M. Beauregard was a modesty, not too 
common among his compatriots, and a chivalry towards 
women which the Quartier Latin had failed to destroy. 
I had known so many petits fdroces (as Daudet called 
them), vaunting their talents and their bonnes fortunes, 
for whom a mistress ranked somewhere between an 
advertisement and an absinthe. He was not an 
arriviste, then ; but neither was he a worker. Too 
self- critical to write badly, too lazy to write well, he 
ended by not writing at all, and, as his means per- 
mitted him to play the role of spectator, he followed 
various movements in art and letters with amiable, 
intelligent passivity. He had come to Japan with the 
object of studying on the spot the Korin and Shijo 
schools of painting, but found his progress much 
hindered by ignorance of the language, which he had 
not seriously tried to learn. As we were both anxious 
to see the Matushima y or Pine Islands, perhaps the 



PLAYING WITH FIRE 211 

most lovely of the Sankei, or Three Views, which the 
Japanese celebrate above all others, it was resolved 
to travel there together in search of grammar and 
scenery. 

About the grammar he was rather fastidious. A 
personage of high rank, whom he had met at an 
Imperial garden-party, had said jokingly : " Why not 
follow the example of M. Pierre Loti and find a 
second * Madame Chrysantheme ' ? We call such 
persons in our idiom ' pillow-dictionaries,' and they 
are the most instructive manuals in the world/' The 
young Parisian was, of course, neither shocked nor 
offended by the suggestion. Not only had he no 
moral scruples himself about forming temporary ties 
such as nine Frenchmen out of ten contract before 
marriage, but he had come to a country, or so he had 
been told, where such ties were neither illegal nor 
dishonourable, but openly recognised, and where a 
mistress did not forfeit her chance of ultimate marriage 
when the relationship should be dissolved. But the 
idea of buying a mate as one buys a horse or a 
picture was repugnant to him, and he preferred to 
wait a while, in the hope that Fortune would provide 
an occasion of affection preceding purchase rather 
than of a purchase which might or might not precede 
affection. The geisha of the capital did not attract 
him : they were too openly venal or brightly con- 
spicuous for his quiet taste, which desired gentle com- 
panionship without such publicity as the appropriation 
of a Tokyo geisha would involve. So, for the moment, 
scenery took precedence of grammar. 

The journey to Sendai on the Northern Railway is 
generally tedious, but was made more so by delays 
and uncertainties of transit owing to extensive inunda- 



212 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

tions of the Tonegawa. Many passengers contem- 
plated the advisability of quitting the train and 
proceeding by relays of boat and rickshaw. Happily 
this troublesome alternative was avoided, and we 
contrived to reach the dull but important capital of 
the Rikuzen province shortly before midnight. The 
next morning we travelled by a branch line to 
Shiogama, the little port on the bay of Sendai from 
which passage is taken to the hamlet of Matsushima 
or the more distant Ishinomaki. We chose the latter 
route, since it traverses the entire archipelago and 
gives a more complete idea of the number and dispo- 
sition of the Pine Islands. Legend counts them to be 
precisely eight hundred and eighty-eight, and, if one 
disappear, eaten by the sea, another pushes up its 
head, conveniently severed by a sword of water from 
some broken peninsula. As the rocks never increase 
nor diminish in number, so the thousand pine-trees, 
which start from crag or shelf in every conceivable 
posture, are never more nor less than one thousand. 
From this banquet of volcanic tufa the ravenous Pacific 
had crunched odd morsels, leaving for future meals 
bizarre and bitten fragments, as capricious in shape as 
its own appetite. Unfinished bastions, wild arches, 
irregularly tunnelled rocks, cone and staircase and 
plateau, lie densely or sparsely scattered over an 
expanse of forty miles, like a herd of amorphous sea- 
monsters, badly made and willingly abandoned to the 
solvent action of time and tide. But then, as if to 
apologise for the Originators clumsiness and to prove 
that his failure may have been expressly intended to 
ensure their success, on the backs and in the crevices 
of the else uncouth stone creatures wave the thousand 
arms of pine, softening rough contours with their 



PLAYING WITH FIRE 213 

clinging green, protesting and protecting with graceful 
curve, or beckoning with siren gesture to passing 
manners. Every island has its name, rooted in his- 
toric or legendary allusion. To the Japanese one has 
suggested " Buddha's entry into Nirvana," another 
"The island of question and reply," while a third 
group is symbolic of " The twelve Imperial consorts." 
But our Western eyes could well dispense with that 
strange bias of Eastern fancy which prefers to asso- 
ciate form with meaning : for us it was enough to 
glide slowly through the haunted waters, to watch the 
blue waves foaming at the islands edge or leaping in 
the sunlight to meet the pine's tentacular caress. 

From the last of the islands to the mouth of the 
Kitakami River, on which Ishinomaki stands, is a 
rough stretch of sea exposed to the full force of the 
Pacific rollers. Our tiny steamer was buffeted by 
wind and rain, and my companion suffered such 
agonies of sea-sickness that it took him two days to 
recover health and spirits. By good luck we found in 
the Asano-ya one of those cosy and coquettish hostel- 
ries which only Japan can boast, where the eye is as 
constantly charmed by good taste as the body is com- 
forted by good cheer. The sliding doors which 
divided our apartment from others had panels of white 
paper, flecked with clouds of gold-dust and framed in 
black lacquer. In the tokonoma or alcove stood a 
pink-flowered shrub and a peacock of bronze beneath 
a beautiful painting by Kano Tan-yu. In vain we 
offered to buy this kakemono from the landlord, or the 
screen, which displayed fighting dragons on one side 
and a noble tiger on the other. They were heirlooms, 
which his children must inherit. Nearly everything 
was pretty in the Asano-ya, except O Maru San. She 



2i 4 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

was the landlord's niece, an orphan Cinderella, con- 
demned by destiny to wait on her uncle's guests. 
While her better-looking sisters had found husbands, 
she trotted contentedly about her work, laughing a 
great deal and singing snatches of song. She was 
about four feet ten inches in height ; her face was too 
large and too round, though this fault was somewhat 
redeemed by fine teeth and soft eyes. She tried to 
atone for plainness of feature by elaborate coiffure and 
punctilious toilette ; but, do what she would, she could 
not escape from the category of ordinary squat village 
girls, who remain at home while their prettier neigh- 
bours fill the tea-houses and geisha-houses of Tokyo. 
Her parents must have had excellent judgment, for 
instead of calling her Lily or Chrysanthemum or some 
other flower-name whose irony must have pursued her 
to the grave, they hit upon O Maru (Miss Round), an 
unromantic but felicitous description of her person and 
character. She had no angularities, moral or physical, 
but was just an elastic, docile ball of Japanese woman- 
hood, both useful and playful ; one of those domestic 
conveniences which Confucian moralists regard as 
admirably adapted to promote the peace and happiness 
of man. 

From the moment of Rene Beauregard's entrance 
until his departure from Ishinomaki, O Maru devoted 
herself to his service. While his illness lasted she sat 
beside him, bathing his forehead and anticipating his 
desires. When he grew well enough to take part in 
the expeditions which I proposed to neighbouring 
temples or islands, she was waiting with his shoes and 
hat on the threshold, bowing low as he went out ; and, 
when he returned for the evening bath, she attended 
him with towel and soap, as assiduously and with as 



PLAYING WITH FIRE 215 

little false shame as Nausicaa attended Odysseus. 
Observing that he seemed anxious to learn the lan- 
guage, which she was quite incompetent to teach, she 
managed, with much laughter and many misunder- 
standings, to increase his vocabulary. She was 
particularly proud of having interpreted two inscrip- 
tions which hung framed in the vestibule of the hotel. 
One, equivalent to "Welcome the coming, speed the 
parting guest," was thus worded : 

" Asa okuri yu mukai." 

More literally it reads, "At morning, honourably 
send on his way ; at hot-water time, honourably 
receive." The other was more difficult to render. 
We disputed two versions, of which I commended the 
first to M. Beauregard's notice, while preferring the 
second in our common interest. Like many maxims, 
it was plausibly vague : 

" Omoi yokoshima nashi." 

Could it mean " Love without naughtiness " ? Or had 
it the particular application of " Hospitality without 
fraud " ? I hoped the latter. 

We remained for seven days at Ishinomaki, charmed 
with the busy life of the place, which owes its pros- 
perity to slate-quarries and salmon-fisheries, with the 
boats for ever passing up and down the Kitakami, with 
Kinkwa-zan, " the golden-flower mountain," that sacred 
island on which in ancient times no women might set 
foot, though the deer roam freely round the pilgrim's 
circuit or ascend to the shrine of Watazumi-no-Mikoto, 
the Shinto god of the sea. During this week two 
circumstances revealed to my French friend the fact 
that O Maru was actuated by quite as much tender- 



216 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

ness as dutifulness in her solicitude for his welfare. 
One day a Norwegian captain, coasting from Sendai 
to the northern island of Yezo, put into harbour for a 
day, and proposed to the landlord that the girl should 
take passage with him for a couple of months in return 
for fifty yen (about ^5), but she displayed strong 
repugnance to this not ungenerous proposition. On 
another occasion O Maru, having innocently intro- 
duced a handsome brunette, her bosom friend, to 
Monsieur Ren6, who did not disguise his pleasure at 
the presentation, was discovered by him at the foot of 
his bed convulsed by tearful jealousy. At first she 
would only give negative replies to his questions. 
" Nakimasen " (" I'm not crying"), and " Shirima- 
sen " (" I don't know why I'm crying"), she said. 
But at last she gave the reason. " Because you are 
now tired of O Maru, and will honourably take notice 
of O Kiku." I must suppose that he found a way of 
reassuring her, as the next day they were warmer 
friends than ever ; and it became plain to me that a 
dictionary, plainly bound but a devoted pocket-com- 
panion, had been providentially deposited for M. 
Beauregard at the Asano-ya, Ishinomaki. Indeed, 
the book was more anxious to be bought than the 
buyer to acquire it, for as soon as the date of our 
return to Tokyo was given out O Maru begged her 
foreign lover to take her with him, and extracted a 
promise that, if her family made no objection, as soon 
as he had made suitable arrangements he would send 
for her to continue the studies which had begun so 
pleasantly on the banks of the Kitakamigawa. 



II 

It is one thing in Japan to make a bargain; it is 
another and far more difficult thing to secure its fulfil- 
ment. Though by no means infatuated with O Maru, 
Beauregard had been touched by her devotion and 
amused by her simplicity. What seemed to him 
certain was that he had merely to send word to 
Ishinomaki, and the faithful girl would fly to his side. 
But this showed his utter ignorance of Japanese 
character and methods of procedure. Before the two 
were reunited, an interchange of six letters and thirteen 
telegrams, spread over six weeks, taught him some 
useful lessons touching the unimportance of time and 
the futility of haste. 

About ten days after our return to the capital, he 
wrote a long letter to the Asano-ya, in which he 
offered to take O Maru with him for two or three 
months if her uncle made no objection, and enclosed 
several yen for travelling expenses. Four days passed 
and brought no reply. Then he wired : " Have you 
received money ? When are you coming ? " and was 
somewhat pacified by the answer : " Money received ; 
will come soon." His knowledge of the language was 
not then fixed, or he would have found little consolation 
in the treacherous words, sono uchi, soon. Another 



2i 8 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

two days and the uncle sent a very polite letter to the 
following effect. They had all been much honoured by 
the honourable stranger's presence in their humble 
home, and thanked him for his great kindness to 
O Maru. She would very much like to travel with so 
distinguished and noble-hearted a person, nor had he, 
the uncle, any objection to her doing so. But he 
would like to call august attention to the fact that he 
had an adopted son who wished to learn French and 
would make an excellent guide, if permitted to join 
the party. He hoped the proposal would commend 
itself to so kind a friend of the family as Borega Sama 
had shown himself to be. Instead of pleasing " Borega 
Sama," this offer to include an " adopted son " in the 
compact distinctly frightened him. He knew cases of 
Europeans who had been led by liking for a native girl 
to burden themselves with her incalculable relations, 
but he did not consider that a trip of two months 
should be encumbered by any such superfluous atten- 
dants. So he wrote a courteous refusal. By this time 
the vagueness of sono uchi preyed on his intelligence, 
and, when its elasticity stretched to eight days, he 
wired once more : " What do you mean by sono uchi? 
When will you come ? " And the answer appeased 
him : " Will come before the end of the month." But 
the end of the month brought a second most affable 
letter from the host of the Asano-ya, in which he 
expressed his intense anxiety to oblige the honourable 
stranger in every possible way, but it so happened that 
just at that time O Maru could not be spared, as his 
humble house was full of reverend pilgrims on their 
way to Kinkwa-zan, the golden-flower mountain, and 
these monopolised her services. He therefore would 
send back the money which Borega Sama had so 



PLAYING WITH FIRE 219 

kindly placed at her disposal, unless he would wait a 
few weeks longer, when she could join him, as the time 
of pilgrimage would be over. We both regarded this 
letter as a polite intimation that the incident was 
closed. Either O Maru had misled her friend when 
she assured him that her uncle wished her to take 
the opportunity of travelling with a " noble-hearted 
person," or the old man had formed other plans for 
his nieces future which did not concern us. In either 
case BoregaSama resolved to finish the matter. He 
wrote briefly but plainly, being a little sore at so much 
tergiversation, that he had no wish to inconvenience 
any of his kind friends at' Ishinomaki, whom he should 
always remember with grateful pleasure, and, if he 
ever returned to Sendai, would revisit them. Then he 
turned his attention to prints and curios. 

Many circumstances render the collectors life par- 
ticularly exciting at the present time. Good finds 
become scarcer every year ; the chief dealers in Tokyo 
and Kyoto send their agents not only all over Japan, 
but also to Europe in the hope of redeeming lost 
treasures. Sometimes an old family or impoverished 
temple is compelled by misfortune to part with the 
works of old masters ; sometimes the new masters of 
the art of forgery palm off surprising imitations which 
deceive even the elect. The jealousy of rival col- 
lectors, the artifices of rival dealers, the uncertainty of 
losing by one purchase what you gain through another 
— all these aspects of the game render it quite as 
amusing as other forms of speculation. To Beau- 
regard the beauty of his favourite designs naturally 
outweighed their commercial value, but it was impos- 
sible to escape the fury of competition which disturbed 
the attachd in his bureau and the professor in his 



220 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

study. Every morning Minami San or Ohara San 
appeared with a stock of tempting pictures, and as 
they perfectly understood the art of playing off one 
buyer against another, you often paid too high a price 
or delayed decision until a bolder and perhaps more 
foolish gudgeon took the bait. Minami San was a 
thin, melancholy man, with carefully plaistered hair 
and irreproachable attire. He had the air of letting 
things go at an appalling sacrifice, so that at times you 
almost hesitated to haggle with him. He seemed too 
gentle for his trade. But Ohara San roused defiance 
and inspired respect. He was an obese, jolly man of 
shrewd capacity. As he sat on your floor drinking tea 
or taking snuff, his patience and persistence were 
admirable. He interspersed the bargaining with merry 
anecdotes and jovial information, as though he rather 
sought your company than your cash, but nothing 
escaped his twinkling eye, and, when a hasty covetous 
glance of the would-be purchaser revealed a preference, 
the wily merchant refused all abatement of price. He 
was of coarser grain than Minami, who, when Beau- 
regard left the country, presented him with a very 
good Kunisada, as a polite acknowledgment of his 
many purchases. But Ohara lent him for a few days 
an extremely rare series of pornographic designs by 
Utamaro, and reclaimed them on the morning of his 
departure. 

One morning Ohara was unrolling a very spirited 
makimono, copied from Keion's " Flight of the Court," 
and giving a vivid representation of military pageant 
in the fourteenth century. As the original is, of 
course, not to be bought, we were on the point of 
arranging terms, when the hotel-boy entered and 
handed a telegram to Beauregard : "I have run 



PLAYING WITH FIRE 221 

away. What shall I do ? Reply Saito Hotel, 
Shiogama. Maru." His first impulse was to reply 
" Come at once," for the unexplained opposition had 
increased his desire to make a settlement, but, on 
second thoughts, the consideration for women, which 
I had already remarked as a kindly trait in his cha- 
racter, prompted this unkind response: "Go home- 
do not come to Tokyo; will write." The letter 
took the sting from the telegram, for he explained 
how foolish it would be to leave home without her 
family's consent, as it might well happen in such 
a case that when he returned to France Maru's 
uncle might refuse to take her back. He repeated 
that, unless she could be spared (and of course he 
would recompense the hotel-keeper for loss of service), 
their proposed trip must be abandoned. So, the 
futile colloquy along the wires began again. Two 
days after: "All right at home. Am coming soon 
(sono uchi). Reply." But this time the student of 
Japanese was not to be put off with sono ttcki. He 
replied : " Come by first train to-morrow, or not at 
all. Am leaving Tokyo." As a matter of fact, he was 
going to Kose, while I was due at Ikao, and we should 
travel together as far as Karuizawa. Late the fol- 
lowing evening, after spending the whole day in the 
theatre, he was handed a telegram by the hotel 
manager, who had not thought it his duty to send 
direct to the Kabuki-za, in which were these words : 
14 1 have missed the train. Box at station. Reply. 
Maru." Then the Frenchman lost his temper. He 
was quite incapable of playing the Oriental game of 
patience, and preferred to throw up the cards. This 
reply, brutal in its brevity, was flashed to poor Maru : 
44 Too late. Do not come." 



222 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

I had been at Ikao a fortnight, and absorbed by 
new acquaintances, was beginning to forget the very 
existence of O Maru San, when a long letter from 
Kose conveyed the surprising intelligence that she had 
at last joined Beauregard in that pretty little mountain 
village. Soon after arriving he had been caught in a 
violent storm on the slopes of Asama-yama, and had 
contracted severe rheumatism. Unable to walk much 
and feeling rather lonely, he wrote finally to Ishinomaki, 
stating that, if she cared to travel so far and become 
his companion for the remaining month and a half of 
his stay, he would make all ready for her reception. 
But, he added, her decision must be prompt and 
definite. A third and last letter reached him from the 
Asano-ya. " My niece," wrote the old man, ''would 
like nothing better than to accept your kind proposal. 
But in the town of Ishinomaki an alliance between an 
honourable stranger and a humble Japanese girl is 
looked upon with disfavour. How is it in Kose ? " 
A final telegram — " No difficulties here. If you come, 
what train ? " — evoked the answer : " Start by eight 
o'clock train to-night." And to his great astonishment 
she kept her word. One afternoon he saw a horse, bear- 
ing two bundles tied to a high saddle, of the protective 
sort which is used for children in England when they 
ride donkeys, ascending the glen from Yunosawa. 
Rain had made the path impossible for rickshaws. 
One bundle was O Maru, the other her luggage. She 
had never been on a horse before, and had never taken 
such a long journey alone by train, but, after two days' 
travelling in the hottest part of August, there she was, 
smiling and looking very happy at the sight of Borega 
Sama. Little by little he discovered the reasons of 
so many delays and prevarications. The landlord, 



PLAYING WITH FIRE 223 

who had at first advised her coming, had been dis- 
suaded by some acquaintances of the Norwegian 
skipper, who urged that, if she waited for the latter's 
return, it would be more to her advantage, since he 
might take her for several voyages and make a longer 
contract with the family than the French tourist cared 
to entertain. Then she had "run away," but only to 
her aunt, who was an ex-geisha and gave dancing 
lessons at Shiogama. At last, as no more news was 
heard of the Scandinavian suitor, she received per- 
mission to follow her own inclination ; and, though the 
journey had presented many terrors, she came, armed 
with an mamori (amulet) of Watazumi-no-Mikoto, 
and, thanks to the care of that potent deity, attained 
the goal of her long-thwarted desire. 



Ill 

Kose is an ideal lovers' nest, hidden in the heart of 
thick forests, where steep hills dip to a stream, now 
visible, now invisible, but always to be tracked by its 
trickling or tumbling song. Shady rambles and cool 
retreats invite whispering confidence, but, to gain a 
view of the rolling country, which culminates in vol- 
canic peaks eight thousand feet high, hard climbing 
or riding is inevitable. O Maru was much too timid 
and delicate to accompany Beauregard on these tiring 
expeditions, and replied one day to a question as to 
how she liked Kose, " Taihen yoroshi : ke' domo miru 
koto arimasen." (It was very nice, but there was 
nothing to see there.) Then he discovered that what 
she most wanted to see, more even than the sights of 
Tokyo or Kyoto, was' the famous temple of Zenkoji at 
Nagano. It was believed by the members of the 
Buddhist sect to which her family belonged that the 
souls of the dead were first given rendezvous at 
Zenkoji, immediately after death, before departing on 
their long journey to other worlds. Her great wish, 
therefore, was to make offerings of rice and incense to 
Amida on the spot where her father and mother had 
passed away, that they might know how lovingly she 
cherished their memory. Two days later her wish 



PLAYING WITH FIRE 225 

was accomplished. As they climbed the broad avenue, 
lined with little booths, at which were sold rosaries, 
candles, breviaries, incense, toys, and sweetmeats, 
Beauregard realised for the first time what vast in- 
fluence is still wielded in Japan by the Buddhist faith. 
Hundreds of pilgrims, in curiously-patterned white 
dresses and palmer hats, moved with chatter and 
laughter towards the chief gateway. On the left of 
the entrance stands a nunnery, ruled by an abbess of 
high rank, and those who cross a graceful bridge to 
enter it find themselves between two large ponds 
of pink-flowered and white-flowered lotos, about the 
roots of which crawl sacred tortoises. Where the 
shops end an avenue of gods extends upto the main 
temple. Not only Monju and Shi Tenno and images 
of the chief rakan or disciples of Buddha alternate 
with lanterns of bronze or stone, but the six Jizo, 
elsewhere so humbly carved in common wood, sit 
proudly prominent in white marble. O Maru had 
bought a packet of rice, some sticks of incense, and 
a little rosary, whose beads were daintily strung on 
purple cord. Beauregard took off his shoes and fol- 
lowed her into the main temple. In that enormous 
building, two hundred feet in depth by one hundred in 
width, the huge outlines of gilded gods glimmered 
darkly, while rustling priests moved to and fro on 
mysterious errands. From the multitudinous rafters, 
whose number, 69,384, is said to correspond with the 
number of Chinese characters in the Buddhist scrip- 
tures, pigeons flew continually, and the flutter of their 
wings, together with the jingle of copper rin tossed 
lightly into the money-box, accompanied, without 
distracting, the low mutter of perpetual prayer. When 
O Maru approached one of the priests with her filial 



226 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

offerings, the old man looked rather inquisitively at the 
handsome foreigner, but said nothing, and, signing a 
certificate of piety, on which her name and the death- 
names of her parents were inscribed, gave it to her 
together with a circular pink sweetmeat, on which 
was stamped a sacred wheel, typical of the law. Then, 
twining the mauve rosary about her chubby hands, 
she murmured three times (( Namu Amida Butsu " — 
("I adore thee, O eternal Buddha), and, as she left 
the altar-rails, threw five rin into the treasury. Her 
devotions were accomplished, and, much lightened in 
heart, she rejoined Beauregard, who was inspecting 
the precincts of the temple. Chief of the treasures 
is a sacred golden group, representing Amida and 
his two followers, Kwannon and Daiseishi, which is 
supposed to have been made by Shaka Muni himself 
from gold found in Mount Shumi, the centre of the 
universe. Legend relates that the foes of the true 
faith had done their worst to destroy this image : all 
attempts to abolish it by fire and water and the sword 
had failed : since the fourteenth century it has rested 
inviolate in a shrine, shrouded by a curtain of rich 
brocade. So carefully is it now guarded, that the 
pious are only allowed, on payment of a small fee, to 
behold the outermost of seven boxes in which it is 
enclosed. Far more accessible is Binzuru, a hideous 
brick-red deity, whose image stands outside the 
chancel, to which position he is expelled for having 
" remarked upon the beauty of a female " in violation 
of the vows of chastity incumbent on Buddha's dis- 
ciples. Binzuru is amply avenged for this harsh ex- 
pulsion. Wherever his ugly visage is seen, you will 
find him caressed and surrounded by women and girls, 
who firmly believe that they have only to touch his 



PLAYING WITH FIRE 227 

body and then rub their own in the same part, to 
banish every pain, great or small, to which the human 
frame is subject. As they wandered from one god to 
another, Beauregard questioned O Maru about her 
faith, which he found to be simple and firm. Once 
she had seen with O Kiku a picture of hell at a temple 
festival, in which fiery demons were inflicting such 
tortures on unbelievers that, though their own belief 
was orthodox, she and her friend had cried them- 
selves to sleep. It occurred to the Frenchman to ask 
whether she had no fear of being punished for living 
with him as his wife, but she replied that she had 
never heard that that was sinful, unless she had been 
promised to some one else. He asked her what was 
the use of giving rice to the souls of the dead, and 
whether she thought they would eat it ; but she 
explained that, whereas living people eat rice, the 
hotoke, or spirits, only eat the soul of the rice, which is 
there, although we cannot see it. She believed in 
prayer, fasting, and amulets, but thought it wasteful 
to spend more than five rin (about one halfpenny) a 
month on the gods, since they required no clothing 
and very little food. 

From Nagano the pair travelled to Kyoto, where 
they remained until the end of their six weeks' honey- 
moon. There I saw a great deal of Beauregard, who 
was equally enamoured of Japanese art and his 
Japanese wife. His days would be spent in visits to 
those temples where good specimens of the Shijo and 
Korin schools were jealously kept, but as he had 
letters of introduction from an eminent professor and 
painter to the authorities, he had exceptional oppor- 
tunities of pursuing his passionate study of the Kyoto 
Renaissance painters. All the treasures of Daitokuji 



228 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

and Chionin, of Kinkakuji and Ginkakuji, were shown 
to him. Sometimes he would spend many hours 
among the early sculptures of Nara, or avail himself 
of an invitation to scan the private collection of a rich 
shipowner at Osaka. His contempt for Hokusai and 
Hiroshigi was unbounded ; words could not express 
his dislike for what he called " the shallow, mere- 
tricious judgment of de Gon court." I await with 
considerable interest the brochure which he intends 
to publish by means of the Mercure de France for 
the edification and confusion of French connoisseurs. 
But O Maru interested me more than Okyo's fish and 
Sosen's monkeys. I would often spend the evening 
with them, and, as we conversed hotly in our barbarian 
tongues, she would sit contentedly sewing and hum- 
ming to herself, delighted to make tea or furnish 
information about her fatherland. Her own curiosity 
was seldom excited, but now and then she betrayed 
depths of astounding ignorance. One night Beau- 
regard had been reading me a chapter from Anatole 
France's delightful " Le Livre de mon Ami," in which 
that writer thus describes a characteristic reminiscence 
of childhood : 

"Jetais bien paye de ma peine des que j'entrais 
dans la chambre de ces dames ; car il y avait la mille 
choses qui me plongeaient dans l'extase. Mais rien 
n egalait les deux magots de porcelaine qui se tenaient 
assis sur la cheminee, de chaque cote de la pendule. 
D'eux-memes, ils hochaient la tete et tiraient la langue. 
J'appris qu'ils venaient de Chine et je me promis d'y 
aller. La difhculte etait de my faire conduire par ma 
bonne. J'avais acquis la certitude que la Chine etait 
derriere TArc-de-Triomphe, mais je ne trouvais jamais 
moyen de pousser jusque-la." 



PLAYING WITH FIRE 229 

With unconscious appropriateness she suddenly 
asked, " Shina no kuni, Furansu no kuni, onaji koto 
des ka ? " (Are France and China the same country ?) 
Nothing could persuade her that thunder was not a 
phenomenon peculiar to Japan, for she had always 
associated it with the wrath of a Japanese deity. Any 
breach of etiquette shocked her sense of propriety, 
and she spent many unhappy moments because of 
Rene's remissness in two particulars. He always 
accepted hospitality when offered by a Japanese friend, 
instead of refusing at least twice for politeness' sake : 
he often forgot to beat down the price of something 
which took his fancy, depriving both seller and buyer 
of the joy of bargaining. These faults lowered him 
in the otherwise indulgent eyes of his little consort. 
Her delicacy in the matter of presents was very 
marked. Though her lover was anxious that she 
should buy a souvenir at every place they visited 
together, he could never induce her to choose any 
but an inexpensive trinket. To remedy this he 
occasionally relied on his own judgment, but the 
result was unfortunate. I remember that we returned 
from Osaka with the prettiest roll of kimono silk to 
be found in the bazaar, but when this was given to 
O Maru she rejected it, explaining that such bright 
colours could only be worn by a girl of fifteen or 
eighteen. Her own age was twenty- two. On another 
occasion he chose a sober stuff of silver-grey, but this, 
it appeared, was only suitable to a woman of forty. 
Aiter that he gave up using his judgment, and begged 
her to spend what money she wanted in her own 
way. 

Her own way was extravagant, as we discovered 
afterwards : it was only his money that she was chary 



230 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

of spending. For, when he presented her with sixty 
yen on the eve of departure, to his surprise she clung 
to him and cried out excitedly, " Watakusi hachiju 
yen hoshii ! " (I want eighty yen /) As she had never 
seemed mercenary, and had at first stipulated for fifty, 
he could not account for this eager demand, which 
was of course immediately accorded. But the next 
day O Maru appeared in a very beautiful cloak, 
lined with white satin, on which were hand-painted 
designs by a well-known painter of Kyoto. She 
had spent nearly the whole of her present, fifty-five 
yen (about £$ 10s.), on that royal garment, which 
would certainly be the most handsome of its kind in 
Ishinomaki. Her parting presents to Rene were 
some prettily embroidered handkerchiefs of silk and 
an original poem, which had more " actuality " than 
literary merit. In fact, it was a very artless cri de 
cceur, and ran thus : 

" Sad is my love for 
Beaurega Sama: 
He goes, but I go 

Never, to France." 

I accompanied them to Kobe, where the Belgic 
was waiting to take passengers to San Francisco, and 
charged myself with the duty of sending O Maru home 
to her family. She came with us on the liner, and was 
overawed by the huge steamer, with its crowd of loud- 
voiced, whisky-drinking barbarians. Once she crept 
closer to Rene, and asked him if he would return as 
soon as his mother died. Filial affection, she knew, 
had the first claim. Then she gave him a small 
wooden wedge, on which was the name of her sea-god, 
Watazumi-no-Mikoto, with injunctions to press it to 



PLAYING WITH FIRE 231 

his bosom every day at the hour of noon. At last the 
bell sounded to clear the decks. O Maru took off her 
wooden get a and climbed down into the tug. Up to 
that moment she had borne herself bravely, but when 
she saw the lessening figure of her lover recede for 
ever into the waste of waters, she sank down in a 
storm of passionate sobs at my feet. 



IV 

Six months later I was passing down the Rue Royale, 
when I saw Rene Beauregard at a little table outside 
Maxime's with two companions, who were engaged in 
a fierce dispute about the never-ending Affaire, while 
his whole attention was absorbed by a letter, which I 
knew from the texture of the paper to be Japanese. 
Greeting him with effusion — for we had not met since 
the Belgic sailed from Kobe — I asked whether he had 
any news of O Maru since his return to Paris. For 
answer he handed me the letter, which, with some 
trouble, I deciphered. It was to the following effect : 

" To Borega Sama, 1 20, Avenue de Clichy, Paris. 

" From the time of your coming to Nippon to the 
time of your going back to your own country, as you 
have been so very kind to me, I humbly render 
thanks. To learn by your letter that you had safely 
crossed so many countries and great seas was indeed 
good news. I had fasted for twenty-three days and 
offered daily prayers to Watazumi-no-Mikoto that you 
might not fall into danger before reaching the house 
of your honourable mother. I am living with my 
aunt at Shiogama, and shall wait seven years in the 
hope that you will come back. I pray for you every 



PLAYING WITH FIRE 233 

day, and shall never forget the happy times we spent 
together in Kose and Kyoto. However long I write, 
there is no end to it, so I shall look for a further 
occasion to tell you my love. In respectful obedience, 

"O Maru." 

The letter contained an enclosure, which it required 
the intervention of a Japanese friend to interpret. 
Whether the girl had herself written the six poems 
which follow, or, as it seems to me more probable, had 
adapted them with slight alterations from a popular 
song-book, I cannot say. They form both epilogue 
and moral to this typical tale. 

1. 

" Could I but meet you ! 
Could I but see you ! 
Waves roll between us ; 
Wishing is vain. 

2. 

" Thinking about you, 
Watching your likeness ; 
Yet the watched likeness 
Says not a word. 

3- 
" You, my French master, 
Living in Paris, — 
I am Awazu's 

Single lone pine. 

4- 
1 In mine ears waking, 
In mine ears dreaming, 
Ever one sound is, 

That of thy voice. 



234 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

5- 

" Heard though the voice be, 
Unseen thy body; 
So, on the mountains, 

Nightingales sing. 

6. 

" Now — though we once slept 
Pillow by pillow — 
1 Where and how are you ? ' 
Asking, I weep." 



AFTERNOON CALLS 



AFTERNOON CALLS 

I 

Theophile Gautier, describing his travels in Russia, 
declares that, whereas Moscow and St. Petersburg fell 
short of the romantic dream-pictures which he had 
conceived of them by reason of their fame, the reverse 
was the case with Nijni-Novgorod, of which the name 
alone allured his ear with chiming syllables. Having 
reached the town with no other premonitory bias 
than the spell exercised by its magical appellation, he 
was ravished by the picturesque admixture of races 
from every corner of the empire. This paradoxical 
conflict between history and geography makes many 
victims. I too had been haunted by the prestige 
of a great name in Japanese annals — the name of 
Ashikaga. As I studied period after period of the 
turbulent evolution from feudal rivalry to military 
usurpation, from military usurpation to constitutional 
monarchy, it seemed more and more evident that the 
Ashikaga Sh5guns, during two-and-a-half centuries 
of power, had been greater friends of art and learning 
than any rulers before or since. At Kyoto I had seen 
the golden pavilion of Yoshemitsu (whom Professor 
Fenollosa compares with Cosmo de Medici) adorned 



2 3 8 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

with mural paintings and screens by the artists whom 
he had imbued with the spirit of dreamy seclusion of 
the Hangkow idyllists. Under his patronage Chinese 
learning took root in Ashikaga University ; the reli- 
gious plays, or No, acquired in the hands of Kiyot- 
sugu their claims to rank as aristocratic opera; the 
war of chrysanthemums, between rival dynasties in 
Yamato and Kyoto, was composed by an astute 
compromise. In short, culture was not purchased at 
the cost of firm government. Nearly a century later 
came Yoshimasa, whose silver pavilion, where he held 
aesthetic revels with his favourites, the Abbots Soami 
and Shuko, was as pale a copy of his great prede- 
cessor's taste as his capacity to govern was inferior. 
Effeminacy followed in the train of refinement. The 
Ashikaga regime left a legacy of civil war and ruined 
peasantry for stronger rulers to replace by hardier 
methods, but it also bequeathed the memory of a new 
learning and a new art. To Ashikaga, then, urged 
by misleading memories and the promise I had given 
to visit Ikao comrades, I gladly repaired when Sep- 
tember rains depressed the face of Tokyo. 

Yamada San, rightly thinking that living friends 
were of more interest than dead lions, took me 
straight from the station to his father's house, and 
postponed all sightseeing until the morrow. Here I 
first realised the patriarchal atmosphere of an old- 
fashioned home. Father and mother were gravely 
courteous, and took pains to show me polite attention, 
but the son scarcely spoke in their presence ; and 
pretty O Mitsu, who looked extremely pale, became 
mute as ivory. The entry of two cousins, who spoke 
a little English, introduced some animation ; and after 
the consumption of tea and oranges O Mitsu was 



AFTERNOON CALLS 239 

asked to sing me an old song, playful, if possible, 
because the foreigner would find it more easy to 
understand. Crouching over a long-stringed koto, she 
sang (the weather was very hot) this popular mosquito 
song: 

" All you wives, lying 
Outside the curtain, 
Many mosquitoes 

Often have stung, 
Till the Bell Seven 
Clanged from the temple : 
Such things a good wife 

(Heeds not at all." 

It was explained that a wife would be showing dis- 
respect to her husband by taking rest under the mos- 
quito-net in his absence. If, therefore, he happened 
to stop out all night, she must still wait for him, out- 
side the net, until the bell for matins sounded the 
retreat of her winged persecutors. " The Bell Seven " 
is named in accordance with old reckoning : the time 
represented is really four in the morning, when the 
Japanese day begins. That was the last I saw of O 
Mitsu, for etiquette forbade her taking supper at my 
hotel in company with her husband and father-in-law. 

We spent the evening with the Tanaka family. 
There, too, I observed the reticence imposed on 
women in their own homes. Tanaka Okusama, who 
at Ikao had discoursed so brightly on every possible 
subject from ethics to Epaminondas, crept quietly from 
one to another of her guests, offering tea and cakes, 
but never joining in the conversation. Her husband, 
who had a most genial, refined face, made an excellent 
host : the four boys sat silently in a corner. Many 
questions were put about European houses and habits, 



2 4 o JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

for the Ashikaga of to-day, being a great centre of 
the trade in cotton goods made from foreign yarn, 
is accustomed to the sight of foreign commercial 
travellers. 

The antiquities of the place were disappointing. 
The Academy of Chinese Learning, founded, if tradi- 
tion may be believed, in 852, after attaining its zenith 
of prosperity under Yoshemitsu, has since gradually 
declined. The great library of Chinese works is 
broken up ; only a few books remain. Of Confucian 
relics there rests only an impressive bronze tablet, 
with full-length figure of the sage, from which 
" rubbings " are sold to the pious. A sinister black 
impression of the gaunt, long-nailed philosopher, whose 
teaching still broods like a shadow over the majority 
of Japanese households, recalls to me, in the shape of 
a colossal kakemono, that dusty, dilapidated school, 
whose students are deserting it for Western lore. The 
vast temple, however, standing in a grove of crypto- 
meria, is still thronged by worshippers, and forms a 
worthy link with the historic glories of Ashikaga. In 
a side-chapel stand wooden effigies of all the Shoguns, 
wearing the tall black court-cap and the moustache 
with small pointed beard, fashionable from the four- 
teenth to the sixteenth centuries. It is related that 
three similar figures, preserved in the Tojiin Temple 
at Kyoto, were subjected to the indignity of decapita- 
tion in 1863, when the Restoration party wished to 
insult the memory of the Shogunate, but did not dare 
to outrage the still powerful Tokugawa. The heads 
were pilloried in the dry bed of the Kamogawa, where 
it was customary to expose the heads of criminals. 
But Kyoto was at once the scene of their rise and 
their decline. In Ashikaga itself their memory lives 



AFTERNOON CALLS 241 

as changeless and as free from insult as the tutelary 
mountain rampart of Akagisan. 

There being no hotel near Yamada's dwelling, he 
secured me a room in a geisha-house, with the result 
that late revelry made sleep impossible. But a bathe 
next morning in the rushing Tonegawa, with the ex- 
citing diversion of shooting some rapids in a crazy 
punt, invigorated me and amused a crowd of urchins, 
who shouted from the bank, "We want to see the 
naked foreigner ! " By the end of the second day I felt 
at home with the older generation of both families, and 
was shown over warehouse, mill, and granary. Having 
not omitted to present miage on arrival, I departed in a 
shower of good wishes and small souvenirs. Yamada 
senior, who had never before (so his son declared) 
been willing to make the acquaintance of a foreigner, 
insisted on my accepting a roll of habutai (white silk, 
resembling taffeta), while Tanaka Okusama met me at 
the station with a parting gift of pickles and poetry. 
She had made the one, her husband the other. In fact, 
he had added this haikai to his published works : 

"You, like a bird, pass, 
Joyous, untrammelled; 
Sad our farewell, when 
Kiri-trees fall." 



II 

The holy province of Izumo should be visited in 
October. Then the Shinto gods and goddesses, 
deserting every other part of Japan, assemble at the 
great shrine of Kizuki under the presidency of 
Onamuji. But every year Onamuji must have sadder 
news to tell his dwindling fellow-deities. At one 
time his own temples on Mount Daisen were as many 
as two hundred and fifty; these have crumbled to a few 
mossy ruins. The goddess Inada-hime, whose lover 
intoxicated with sakd the eight-headed serpent and 
cut the monster in pieces, that she might become his 
spouse, is invoked by fewer youths and maidens 
desiring happy marriages. On all hands the Shinto 
Pantheon is being undermined by two strangely allied 
foes — by atheism and Christianity. Though full of 
sympathy for the august descendants of Izanagi and 
Izanami, the creator and creatress of the Japanese 
universe, I could not refuse the hospitality of a 
Japanese Christian, whose unremitting kindness will 
always be associated for me with the romantic beauty 
of Matsue. 

From my hotel, which stood on the edge of the blue 
Shinjiko lagoon, I was watching the little steamers 
puff angrily to and fro, the endless procession of 



AFTERNOON CALLS 243 

passengers across the long curving bridge, and one or 
two old fishermen wading in the shallows, when a 
message arrived inviting me to take tea with Assistant- 
Judge Nomura at his house on Castle-hill. Happening 
to arrive before the other guests, I was first shown a 
curious collection of prints, illustrating the costumes 
and customs of ancient Korea, and a series of pictures 
of all the ironclads belonging to the Japanese navy. 
This mixture of old and new was very characteristic of 
Mr. Nomura, who admired with enthusiasm Western 
dress, furniture, and religion, but reverenced at the 
same time his own national traditions. Naturally his 
knowledge of the two was one-sided, and he was 
happily unconscious that his fine collection of Inari 
and Satsuma ware was simply insulted by the base 
intrusion of a sixpenny London saucer. Four inha- 
bitants of Matsue — two young lawyers, a musician, 
and an old painter — were announced, and the host at 
once took a more ceremonious tone. We all entered 
the tiny tea-room, nine feet square, containing four and 
a half mats, and were occupied for more than half an 
hour with cka-no-yu, the august tea-making, which 
seemed to me unnecessarily long, perhaps because it 
was conducted by a wizard in a grey coat and blue tie. 
I preferred the dainty witches of the Miyako-odori. 
Besides the formal ablution and handling of accessory 
instruments, at stated intervals a bell was rung, the 
room was swept, we walked from the house to the 
garden and back from the garden to the house with a 
scrupulosity that would have satisfied Hideyoshi 
himself. At last the august tea, thick and green and 
hot, was presented to each visitor, who drank with 
slow but noisy demonstrations of lip-homage, to testify 
polite satisfaction. 



244 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

Then we adjourned to the sitting-room, where the 
musician brought out two antique Chinese objects, one 
bearing resemblance to a flute and the other to a violin 
with shaggy, semicircular bow. On these he pro- 
duced, not without effort, very weird sounds, which I 
was obliged to eulogise as being entirely novel and 
remarkable, for I could not compare them with any 
melodies familiar to European ears. I believe the 
others shared my relief when a painting competition 
was suggested, for they could all handle a brush as 
easily as I a pen, and the eye is less fastidious than 
the ear. The first bout was in three colours, sepia, 
Indian black, and red, though the last was sparingly 
used. The designs were rapidly and lightly touched 
in — a hawk pouncing on a goose ; a carp swimming 
against the stream ; a frog climbing up a reed ; and a 
terrified child, with shaven pate, running away from a 
temple- dancer, masked by a lion's head. Next a 
batch of fans was distributed to the competitors, who 
speedily adorned them with fanciful arabesques, in 
which curled clouds played hide-and-seek with Fuji, 
or moonlit pines peeped out from drifted snow. We 
drew lots for these souvenirs of playful skill, and to me 
fell the picture of the child flying from the lion-mask. 
But at this point Mr. Nomura's own children, two 
charming little girls, brought us in presents of flowers 
and cakes wrapped in silver paper. The rickshaws 
were at the door ; sayonara rang cordially in our ears ; 
one of the pleasantest calls I ever made came to an 
end. 

Curiosity prompted me to attend the service held by 
native Christians in an abandoned Shinto temple per- 
verted to evangelical use. Most of the congregation 
belonged to the more credulous sex. Mothers, carry- 



AFTERNOON CALLS 245 

ing their babies on their backs, sat in rows on mats, 
while one or two chairs were placed for foreign visitors. 
All joined heartily in the hymns and listened attentively 
to the simple prayers. Sometimes a shoji, or sliding 
shutter, was gently pushed aside, and an inquisitive 
face peered in on the worshippers. The missionary, a 
man of athletic frame, with the cold, fixed eyes of a 
fanatic, preached with fervour on the subject of original 
sin. He held the doctrine that perfection was to be 
realised on earth, and believed that he had personally 
attained it. From all accounts he was a hard-working 
idealist, who spared no pains to make converts, but his 
ascetic views must seem violently out of harmony 
with the Shintoist easy-going faith, which has for 
moral code* the single maxim, "Follow your impulses 
and obey the Emperor." Although not subjected to 
persecution, a native Christian hardly ever remains in 
his birthplace. The Matsue converts whom we met 
had come from Hiroshima, Osaka, and other spots. 
Some estimate of the progress of Western religion 
among Matsue merchants may be based on the pro- 
portion of believers in the middle school, to which all 
the boys of the better classes are sent. Out of about 
five hundred boys and sixty masters, two boys and one 
master profess Christianity. 

Etiquette is luckily assimilated to foreign custom 
among Japanese Christians. When Judge Nomura 
returned my call, he was accompanied by his wife and 
little girls, who were delighted with some dolls and 
picture-books which I had purchased for them in 
London. At first O Ai San and O Dai San, diminu- 
tive damsels aged four and five respectively, sat 
solemnly in a corner burning fireworks — hana-bi, as 
they are called — with tied tongues and eyes fixed on 



246 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

the spluttering flowers of flame. But gradually they 
thawed, and losing all their shyness, played battledore 
and shuttlecock, blindman's buff, and other games. 
When the babies had gone home with their nurse, 
the judge and his wife remained to dinner, and a 
lay preacher, who spoke English perfectly, proved an 
invaluable medium of conversation. As my guests 
expressed a desire to conclude the evening with 
hymns, we sang a great many, from which they de- 
rived spiritual pleasure, while my knowledge of their 
language was much enlarged. The lay-preacher had 
always two or three hymn-books in his pocket, English 
and Japanese versions being printed on opposite pages. 
Suddenly this pious exercise was rudely interrupted. 
A tipsy geisha, holding a sa&J-cuip in her hand, 
staggered into the room and addressed some bac- 
chanalian words to the lay preacher, who chanced to 
be near the door. She had escaped from a rather 
noisy wedding-party, which was feasting and clapping 
hands in the room below, while the bridal couple had 
retired and the skimadai, an emblematic group of pine 
and bamboo, crane and tortoise, remained for a sym- 
bolic centre of festal joy. We took this intrusion for a 
hint to separate, and it certainly jarred on a devotional 
mood. To my friends this apparition must have sug- 
gested the " scarlet woman," whose cup is full of abom- 
inations, but I could not regard it in any other light 
than the opportune assertion of la joie de vivre y pro- 
testing against the gloomy gospel of Puritan restraint. 



Ill 

And yet the joy of living, dissociated from any prin- 
ciple but that of self-indulgence, is apt to produce 
strange types of Anglo-Saxon degeneracy. Dr. Silenus, 
whose hospitality and frankness are a byword in Azabu, 
would seem to have fallen victim to that fatal fascina- 
tion which Mr. Kipling ascribes to the lands " East of 
Suez, where the best is like the worst ; Where there 
ain't no ten commandments, an* a man can raise a 
thirst." Thirst was never absent, and the decalogue 
rigidly banished from the epicurean establishment, 
which I take leave to describe as a warning and a 
comfort to the " unco' guid." 

Sunday afternoon was regularly set apart for pagan 
revels, to which the whole neighbourhood was admitted, 
for the large-hearted Doctor loved to see his house full 
of friends and acquaintances. When you had skirted 
the moat which encircles the imperial palace, and 
climbed the steep daimachi, you hailed with relief a 
row of houses, mostly inhabited by Europeans and 
surrounded by similar high fencing. But, the gate 
once passed, all similarity between Liberty Hall and its 
respectable neighbours ceased. In no other courtyard 
would you be greeted by the sight of a hawk, an owl, a 
goat, and several monkeys dwelling together in unity. 



248 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

Lucullus, the goat, was an epicurean like his master, 
but less eclectic, for his diet included wood and iron 
and stones, nails and lighted cigars and boxes of 
matches. Indeed, he might still be living, a triumph 
of desire over digestion, had he not one day tried a 
dose of refined camphor, which brought death and a 
costly Shinto funeral. 

Having penetrated the bodyguard of animals, you 
would enter a large room, adorned with fine bronzes 
and screens, which you had not leisure to examine, for 
so many unusual sights claimed attention. At the 
back would be masked dancers or musicians, rather 
cramped for space by reason of the motley, semi- 
circular crowd of men, women, and children, who 
filled the foreground as far as a row of chairs set in 
the verandah for barbarian friends. Dominating all 
sat the master of the revels, his huge torso bare to the 
waist and profusely tattooed with elegant designs. As 
he passed the whisky to the " parasites" (for so he 
was accustomed to call the band of adherents who 
made his house their own), the genial, rotund Doctor 
looked the very incarnation of Ebisu or Silenus. 

The first dancer on the afternoon of my arrival was 
Kabukei-jishi, the boy in a lion's mask, whose figure 
is so familiar in Japanese streets on New Year's Day. 
Kabukei, a native of Echigo, is said to have originated 
and given his name to this realistic dance. Though 
the children must have seen it often before, some of 
them laughed and others cried with terror, as the 
clever mimic crawled up to them roaring, or scratching 
himself, or shaking his ears. Then followed a comic 
scene between two peasants and a Daimyo, who was 
obliged to defend himself with sword and fan against 
the heavy hoes of his disrespectful henchmen. A 




Lion-Dance on New Year's Day 



AFTERNOON CALLS 249 

medical comedy, probably inspired to some extent by 
Dr. Silenus, had for motifs quarrel between a physi- 
cian and a farmer, whose wife was expecting to give 
birth to a child but had no wish to complicate an old- 
fashioned process by new-fangled medicine. The 
outspoken dialogue did not shock the unsophisticated 
audience, for whom Nature is not swathed in conven- 
tional veils of reticence, but the actors observed the 
ne coram publico maxim to this extent, that the birth 
took place in the wings, to be followed by a rather 
thrilling infanticide. Bloodshed is always pleasing to 
the playgoers of Tokyo. » The last piece to be per- 
formed was a duologue between Kitsune, the fox- 
god, and a greedy rustic. Kitsune carried a bag of 
rice, and offered a mouthful in reward for every athletic 
or acrobatic feat which the other should succeed in 
imitating. When the gilt-snouted fox had set the 
example of leaping or balancing with adroit agility, 
the sly lout would make a clumsy pretence of doing 
the same, and always managed to obtain the rice by 
chicanery. At last the god discovered that he was 
being tricked, and killed the peasant with a blow from 
his rake. Nothing seemed to amuse the Azabu 
children so much as the antics of these two. 

On another occasion Dr. Silenus invited a large 
party to witness a still more interesting exhibition in 
his garden. If I have used the word " degeneracy " 
to express his repudiation of certain moral ideas to 
which the Anglo-Saxon race pays the compliment of 
formal adherence, it should yet be added that his 
"self-indulgence" included the laborious pleasure of 
teaching himself the art of sword-making. Under 
Japanese tuition he had attained great proficiency, and 
if his blades did not rank with those of Masamune and 



2 so JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

Muramasa, at least they excited the admiration and 
envy of experts. Between him, therefore, and those 
martial patriots of his adopted country who in their 
hearts regret the swashbuckling days of old, before 
barristers and deputies were minted from a foreign 
model, latent sympathy could not but exist. Now the 
soshiy to whom allusion has already been made, and 
whose nominal profession might range from that of 
vagabond actor to that of political agent or bravo, 
have this in common — they love a life of roving 
independence, while owning loose allegiance to some 
momentary chief. As constitutional methods take 
deeper root among their compatriots, it becomes more 
difficult for them to practise an avowed calling which 
shall serve as a centre of organisation. In the summer 
of 1898 one of them hit on the brilliant idea of 
founding an Association for the Revival of the Noble 
Art of Self-defence ; that is, the euphemism was 
closely akin to the title by which lovers of boxing in 
England and America glorify their taste, while the 
object was to promote skill in the use of lethal 
weapons. The Doctor, whom I regard as a thorough 
ronin, or unattached " wave-man," refusing to bow 
the knee to social or ethical Baals, became at once a 
subscribing member. He used to declare that this 
adhesion procured him privileged places at almost 
every public function which he attended, so potent is 
the freemasonry of his brothers-in-arms. At least I 
can certify that it procured for us a spectacle of unique 
and amazing skill. 

The first combat was between a swordsman and a 
spearsman, in which I fully expected that the lighter 
arm must easily prevail over the cumbrous and more 
lengthy one. But I had reckoned without the swivel, 



AFTERNOON CALLS 251 

which made the lance in dexterous keeping a formidable 
instrument. When the swordsman, abandoning the 
defensive, tried to strike down his opponent's spear 
and deal a close thrust, the latter with the rapidity of 
lightning drew in his weapon, and shooting it out 
again before the other could recover his ground, drove 
the point home. In four bouts out of five the spear 
proved mightier than the sword. Then it was pitted 
against a more archaic compound of pickaxe arid 
boomerang. To a small-headed axe was attached an 
iron ball by a long cord, with which the holder tried 
to entangle his adversary's lance. He slung the ball 
with his right, and if successful drew a dagger with 
his left hand to plant the conquering blow. That 
many of the fencers could use either hand with equal 
effect was proved by the next series of encounters 
between two-sworded and one-sworded men. These 
had been very carefully matched, and the superior 
skill of the man who was armed with but a single 
sword in three cases out of seven decided the result. 
Like a wise entrepreneur, the Chief of the Soshi had 
reserved his most sensational contest for the end. 
Female warriors are no novelty in Japan. The 
Emperor, even up to the time of his restoration to 
actual sovereignty in 1868, counted among his troops 
a corps of Amazons, whose training was as severe and 
whose prowess as remarkable as those of the Samurai 
themselves. When a stalwart woman came forward 
armed with a halberd and wearing the same wide 
hakama as her opponent, whose arm was a sword, she 
astonished us all by the vigour and dexterity of her 
onslaught. The war-cries which she uttered were 
very terrifying, and I am inclined to attribute her 
victory rather to them than to any hypocritical chivalry 



252 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

on the part of her adversary. I wondered if this 
muscular virago obeyed the Confucian ordinance, 
"A woman should look on her husband as if he were 
heaven itself, and never weary of thinking how she 
may yield to her husband, and thus escape celestial 
castigation." 



IV 

I was seated in the office of that flourishing Tokyo 
newspaper, Yorodsu Choho — waiting for my friend the 
sub-editor, whose name, Kishimoto Bunkyo, will one 
day be famous, when my tedium was enlivened by an 
apparition. In spite of the care taken to entertain 
foreigners in the waiting-room of that popular journal, 
I had been bored. The square of Brussels carpet, the 
presence of table and chairs, the permission to keep 
one's shoes on, the literary delights afforded by 
Macaulay's " Essays," Washington Irving's " Sketch- 
book," and Mr. Stead's " If Christ came to Chicago " 
—all these things failed to dispel that ennui, born of 
perpetual waiting, which only Oriental patience can 
endure. Suddenly entered this welcome apparition, 
feminine, furious. "Is there any one here who speaks 
English?" it asked impetuously. The old door- 
keeper, catching at the sound " English," muttered 
the word " Kishimoto," and climbed the stairs in 
quest of my friend. The apparition and myself were 
thus left alone, and eyed each other furtively, with 
embarrassment. At any other time I should have been 
delighted to make the acquaintance of this pretty, 
smart American, but an instinct warned me that her 
business was private and delicate. I pretended to 



254 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

be absorbed by the dreary violence of Mr. Stead. 
Kishimoto descended, alert and smiling. The appari- 
tion, thrusting a lady's visiting-card before his eyes, 
did not smile, but said rapidly : 

" That's who I am. About that paragraph in 
yesterday's paper ; who wrote it ? " 

"It was our reporter, madam. He is not at the 
office to-day, but if you wish to make an appoint- 
ment " 

11 Can he speak English ? " 

" No, madam, but I shall be pleased to put my 
services at your disposal, if I can be of any use. 
Personally my responsibility is limited to the English 
column, whereas " 

" I know, I know. Well, just tell your reporter 
that my husband's real mad about this, and he don't 
intend to let it drop. Likely as not, he'll be round 
here with a horse-whip, if your editor don't make some 
kind of apology or explanation. Good-day to you." 

The apparition disappeared as suddenly as it had 
arrived. I looked reproachfully at Kishimoto. " Per- 
sonal paragraphs ? " I asked. " Are you trying to 
attack Americans with their own weapons ? And why 
don't you leave ladies alone ? " He explained that 
Mrs. Kurumaya, the pride of Idaho, was married to a 
Japanese professor, and had recently xome to Tokyo 
with her husband. As there happened to be a German 
from Idaho in the same hotel, the materials of ^mdnage 
a trots were too tempting to be neglected by a sharp 
penny-a-liner. Hence the paragraph, the scandal, 
and the apparition. " And what next?" I asked. 
" The editor will censure his informant, insert an 
apology, and banish the matter from his readers' 
memories by fresh paragraphs of a similar character." 



AFTERNOON CALLS 255 

Ten minutes after we had forgotten Mrs. Kurumaya 
and her grievances, for Kishimoto had invited me to 
visit his quarter of Hongo, and on the way thither 
we engaged in a vain effort to find the grave of 
the painter Hokusai. Yet the indications given by 
Professor Revon in his careful monograph seemed 
exact. We discovered the little monastery of Sekioji 
(divine promises) near Asakusa, and, having traversed 
the short avenue of cherry-trees which leads to the 
temple door, began our search among the black, lichen- 
stained tombs. In the third row we should have 
found a stone bearing on ,one side the words — 

" Hokusai, of Shimosa Province, 
Famous Genius, Sincere Man, 
Died May 10, 1849." 

and on the other a poem, which the old man of eighty 
composed on his death-bed, one summer evening half 
a century before — 

" Lightly a man's soul, 
Lightly a fire-fly, 
Passes in summer 

Over the plains." 

But though a young priest came to our assistance, the 
neglected row of undecipherable inscriptions guarded 
their secret, and we were obliged to give up the 
search. 

Kishimoto could not understand the foreigner's 
admiration for Hokusai, and regarded it with the same 
tolerant contempt as most Germans exhibited thirty 
years ago towards admirers of Wagner. "There is 
nothing noble," he cried, "in his pictures, nothing 
sublime. He simply reproduced the vulgar street 



256 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

scenes in which he lived. Even his drawings of Fuji, 
the holy mountain, are defiled by grinning carpenters 
and ostlers." He promised to show me specimens of 
what his countrymen considered far higher art when we 
should reach his father's house, and in effect, when 
we were seated in a pretty tea-room, overlooking a 
large garden, he unrolled for me some fine kakemono 
by Sesshu, Yeitoku, and Kiyonaga, which his family 
cherished with intense veneration. But nothing could 
arouse in me the enthusiasm which he evidently felt 
for three or four pieces of Chinese calligraphy. There 
was, of course, no colour in such masterpieces, no 
historic or anecdotic interest, for he assured me that 
the words themselves had no particular depth or beauty. 
Their sole charm consisted in the divine sureness of 
touch, which had traced the intricate flying characters 
through a maze of stroke and curve, and it seemed 
to my untrained intelligence that to appreciate them 
properly one must be a brush rather than a man. 

From kakemono we turned to masks, of which he 
had a splendid collection. Students of Japanese 
demonology could have told me many weird stories of 
the cruel, leering monsters, whose faces reflected so 
vividly the devilish imagination of their makers. But 
Kishimoto only knew one story, and that rather a 
pretty one, concerning Kijin, whose rank in the diabolic 
hierarchy I have not been able to ascertain. He had 
it from a Buddhist nun, his aunt, and it bears every 
mark of having been invented pour les jeunes filles. 

The Story of Kijin and O Kamma San. 

" When her mother died O Kamma was so over- 
come with grief that she lost for a time all interest 



AFTERNOON CALLS 257 

in living. Every day she laid flowers on the grave 
and every night she cried herself to sleep. But, when 
a month had passed, her father, who was of a gay 
disposition, loving music and sakd, scolded the girl 
severely, saying, that since it was the will of Heaven 
that his sezdnnin, or faithful housewife, had left the 
world of tears, it was undutiful to make the survivors 
miserable by perpetual Ah-ing, and impious as well. 
So O Kamma kept a bright face while she went about 
her household duties, and contrived every evening to 
slip up the hill to the temple of Kiyomizu-dera, where 
she prayed to the Motet Compassionate One, the 
goddess Kwannon, whose countenance was gentle as 
her mother's had been. But when this habit had 
brought her into a peace of mind which was not 
remote from happiness, her father took a wife from 
among the geisha of Shimabara, whose jealousy and 
cruelty soon made her stepdaughter's life unbearable. 
She discovered that the girl's chief pleasure was her 
nightly visit to Kiyomizu, and, as she did not dare to 
forbid her openly to go to the temple, she would set 
her long tasks, saying, " You must not leave the house 
until you have mended all the skoji" or " First finish 
embroidering this kimono." But O Kamma worked 
twice as hard as before, and never once missed her 
evening prayer to the goddess. Then the wicked 
stepmother tried to frighten her out of going. One 
night she hid herself behind a pillar of the temple, and 
when the girl entered darted upon her wearing the 
fearful mask of Kijin, whose teeth glittered fiercely In 
the twilight. But O Kamma said, ' Bite me if you 
will, O Kijin Sama ; I shall still say my prayers/ And 
then the tables were turned. For a scream of terror 
came from the geisha's lips, and when Kamma rose 

R 



2 5 8 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

from her knees she saw that the devil's mask was so 
tightly fixed that it could not be removed from her 
stepmother's features. The latter, in an agony of 
fright, cried out to the girl to pray for the help of the 
Most Compassionate One. So Kamma interceded 
with Kwannon, and the demon let go of the wicked 
woman's face ; but from that time she lost all beauty 
and lightness of heart, nor did she interfere any more 
with the filial piety of O Kamma San." 

Having shown me his private treasures, Kishimoto 
very kindly proposed taking me to some exhibitions, 
which would at least be strange, if not beautiful. We 
drove first to the Chrysanthemum Show at Dango-zaka, 
where my friend pointed out to me more kinds of 
blossom than I can remember ; but some, by reason of 
their fanciful names, it would be impossible to forget. 
There were " White Dragon " and " Sleepy Head," a 
heavy disc with towzled petals ; " Fisher's Lantern," 
of which the dark lustre showed like velvet beside 
the blushing pink-and- white complexion of " Robe of 
Feathers " ; " Starlit Night," resembling frost-flowers ; 
and, most marvellous of all, a galaxy of various sorts 
and colours, radiating by the grafter's patient skill from 
a single stem. Fearful of outraging his refined taste 
by such vulgar curiosity, I persuaded the sub-editor 
to wait for me in the tea-house which faces the river, 
while I followed some gaping women and children into 
twopenny shows which delight and instruct the simple. 
There, trained over trellis-work or encasing figures of 
wood and wax, the docile chrysanthemum evokes 
familiar scenes from legend or play. Chrysanthemum 
warriors pursue chrysanthemum maidens ; chrysanthe- 
mum Danjuro dances the cryptic measure of Jiraiya 
before a chrysanthemum frog ; chrysanthemum ele- 



AFTERNOON CALLS 259 

phants, castles, warships, monkeys, and demons com- 
pose a fantastic universe in which the flowers seem 
turned to magic serpents, which simulate and strangle 
all other creatures. 

4 'What do you think of them?" asked Kishimoto, 
when I rejoined him. " Have you ever seen such 
monstrosities before ?" " No," I answered; 4 'they 
suggest to me a collaboration between Madame 
Tussaud and the author of the ' Arabian Nights.' " 
" Well," he said, " since you mention the 'Arabian 
Nights,' how would you like to hear one of our 
professional story-tellers ? Shall we dine at Asakusa 
and go to a yosd afterwards ? " " You anticipate my 
heart's desire, and lay up for yourself undying gratitude. 
Let us go to ayose*." 

At the Isemon Restaurant delicious shrimp-cutlets 
and delightful geisha made of dinner a rather pro- 
tracted ceremony. When we arrived at Tsuruse, 
near the Nihon-Bashi, only a few seats at the back of 
the room were unoccupied. We had paid 30 sen 
(about sevenpence-halfpenny) at the door, and the 
nakatiri, a daintily-dressed waiting-maid, charged only 
twopence for tea, cushion, and tobacco-box. On the 
curtained platform at the opposite end of the hall a 
zenza, or debutant, was relating a comic anecdote, 
which greatly amused his auditors. Like so much 
Tokyo humour, the laughter was calculated to flatter 
the townsman's shrewdness at the countryman's ex- 
pense. A farmer, whose son had gone to make a 
living in the capital, received a telegram asking for a 
pair of new shoes, stout and solid, such as only the 
provinces can produce. Proud of his telegram, the 
first which had been received in those parts, and 
believing the mischievous information of a neighbour 



2 6o JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

who saw his way to an excellent joke, the father had 
the shoes made and hung them on the telegraph-wires, 
never doubting that they would at once be trans- 
ported to Tokyo. Soon after the crafty neighbour 
took down the shoes and substituted an old pair of his 
own. When the farmer happened to pass by in the 
evening, he was astounded by the excellence and 
promptness of telegraphic communication. " Look, 
my friends," said he; "in half a day I can send my 
son a pair of new shoes and receive his old ones in 
return." 

The zenza was followed by a tezuma, or conjurer, 
whose tricks, though exceedingly deft and graceful, 
were such as I had seen before. Then came a mimic, 
whose impersonations of popular actors provoked 
much applause. At last, after a musical performance 
which served as interlude, the famous raconteur, 
Sukeroku, continued his elaborate historical romance, 
dealing with a Japanese Perkin Warbeck, whose pre- 
tensions to the Shogunate had caused much dissen- 
sion among the adherents of the Tokugawa dynasty. 
Evidently the frequenters of the yosi> like the bulk 
of playgoers, prefer mediaeval to modern topics. As 
the venerable author tapped with his fan on a little 
wooden slab to emphasise his points, and passed with 
rich elocution from incident to incident, the audience 
followed with rapt attention. Abruptly, as it seemed, 
he arrested his narrative, and the formula "To be 
continued in our next " was legible in the half-expec- 
tant, half-disappointed looks of his hearers. Before 
leaving I gathered a few particulars about the profes- 
sion of a hanashika or story-teller. An established 
artist, or shinuchi, will receive ioo yen (about £10) 3. 
month (during half of which period one tale will con- 




A Professional Story-teller. 



AFTERNOON CALLS 261 

tinue from night to night), or perhaps 60 per cent, of 
the takings. He may receive this sum from three or 
four yosd, since the hanashika form a corporation and 
have branch-houses in all the chief towns. Many of 
the more famous, like Hakuen and Encho, publish 
their stories after they have been delivered orally. I 
was not able to hear the English story-teller, Mr. Black, 
whose knowledge of Western literature and Japanese 
speech enables him to draw on a larger rdpertoire than 
his colleagues. Foreigners who desire to accustom 
their ears to the sound of the language will find the 
yosd infinitely more useful than the theatre, for the 
style is less literary and the diction less artificial. 



V 



I was dazzled by Jiraiya. He bewildered my senses 
with sleight of hand and foot ; he soothed my con- 
science with bold sophistries. For two rin I would 
have caught up an uncouth pike, assumed outrageous 
armour, and followed that robber-chief unhesitatingly 
to glory or to death. Vaguely I could remember 
being stirred in boyhood by the prowess of Robin 
Hood, by the fortunes of Aladdin, but here was a 
magnificent being who rivalled and surpassed both 
heroes in his own person. Like the outlaw of Sher- 
wood Forest, he defied the powerful and helped the 
humble ; judges and soldiers trembled at his name, 
which was breathed with blessings by the poor but 
grateful receivers of stolen goods. When the Govern- 
ment at last put forth its strength to crush him (and 
here his superiority was incontestable), instead of 
calling on his men in green to empty their trusty 
quivers, he had merely to summon his attendant 
sprite, a green frog, which could be trusted to spout 
fire until the last representative of futile authority 
should be utterly consumed. I had seen him dancing 
on the back of an awful dragon, which the frog van- 
quished before the beast had time to swing its tail ; 
I had seen him dancing defiantly on a mountain 



AFTERNOON CALLS 263 

covered with snow, while his whirling spear threatened 
a score of enemies dancing round the base : suddenly 
the mountain changed to a fire-spitting frog, and the 
enemies danced no more. Perhaps it was this decora- 
tive fashion of dancing in battle which reconciled me 
to the wholesale slaughter of so many brave men. 
At the moment I merely felt that they were hostile to 
Jiraiya and well deserved their doom. Similarly, it 
seemed no more than the deserts of my loyal en- 
thusiasm when a courteous attendant, bowing to the 
ground, brought a message to my box to the effect 
that Jiraiya would be pleased to see me in his dressing- 
room when the curtain fell. 

I followed the attendant down winding passages, and 
was shown into a small wooden compartment, which 
contained grease - paint, brushes, dresses, and in the 
corner a dignified old man, with eyes as sharp as Ibsen's 
and the gravity of an archbishop. In his expression 
was no hint of robbery, dancing, or witchcraft. I looked 
round for the green frog, but the only other occupants 
of the room were two young ladies in sky-blue kimono, 
whom I afterwards discovered to be the actor's 
daughters. They never miss one of their father's per- 
formances. Presenting the letter which Mr. Fukuchi 
had kindly indited, I begged permission to interview 
Jiraiya at length on several phases of his complex per- 
sonality. Ichikawa Danjuro (how well the stately 
syllables suited his demeanour) replied that he would 
be pleased to receive me any afternoon in the following 
week at his own house, where he would be resting 
between two engagements. But I knew that a magi- 
cian (and, above all, a Japanese magician) held time 
to be of no more consequence than life or death, so I 
specifically demanded Wednesday as my share of his 



264 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

timeless immortality. The request was granted : the 
applicant retired. 

I have known actors so devoted to their art that 
they treat every incident, however trivial, as a matter 
of theatrical importance, and impose on every ac- 
quaintance the role of a spectator. They grasp your 
hand with that fervour which warms the heart of the 
gallery, and take leave of a lady with glances such 
as melt the stalls. This exaggerated consciousness 
of his calling is utterly absent from Mr. Danjuro, who, 
off the boards, becomes less of an actor and more of an 
archbishop in proportion as he realises every year the 
growing prestige and veneration attached by the bulk 
of his compatriots to the chief of the Japanese stage. 
To them he is a great deal more than the successful 
acquirer of fame and money : he is the inheritor and 
transmitter of a great tradition, a living link with that 
pictorial old Japan which, beaten back by modern 
innovation outside the theatre, holds its own gallantly 
in the unstormed fortress of national drama. His 
habitation is in complete accord with the honourable 
position held by its proprietor. Good taste and sim- 
plicity conceal all traces of the wealth which is his. 
Opposite the reception-room is a small lake, decorated 
with trees and huge ornamental stones such as the 
Japanese aesthete loves, since they recall, as far as may 
be, the freaks which Nature loves to play with forest and 
mountain. The rooms are of white wood, beautifully 
planed, and the only objects which suggest the theatre 
are ftida, or long laths, hung with wreaths and bands 
of silk, on which are inscribed tributes of admiration 
from tea-houses, geisha-houses, and guilds of various 
kinds. When the master entered, wearing a quiet- 
coloured kimono of grey cotton, he greeted his visitors 



AFTERNOON CALLS 265 

(my friend Kishimoto had volunteered his services as 
interpreter) with grave cordiality, and, having ordered 
a servant to bring in coffee and cakes, proceeded to 
answer my questions with imperturbable kindness. 

" My family," he said, " have been actors for nine 
generations. My earliest recollection of the stage dates 
from 1840, when I was carried on in my fathers arms, 
an infant of three, for introduction to the public. As 
you may know, the fashion of adoption plays a con- 
siderable part in all our confraternities. Great names 
are never allowed to die out. Thus, at the age of 
eighteen, I took the name of Gonjuro, being adopted 
by the manager of the old Tokyo theatre, and it was 
not until my fathers death in 1874 that I became 
Danjuro the Seventh, so styled. Danjuro the First 
made his ddbut in the year 1673." 

" And which is your favourite part, Mr. Danjuro ? " 

M I prefer historical plays, which revive old ideals 
and present noble figures for the emulation of posterity. 
In my opinion the best plays are those which stimu- 
late patriotism. Perhap ' Kajincho,' in which Benkei, 
disguised as a priest, enables Yoshitsune to cross the 
bridge and become master of Kyoto, is the role I like 
best." 

I had long since made the acquaintance of Benkei, 
the Devil Youth, and the feats both of mind and body 
which he achieved for the sake of his youthful victor, 
ever since the latter had defeated him in single combat 
on Gojo bridge, were familiar to me both from coloured 
prints and the representation of " Funa Benkei," by 
members of a No troupe. It was evident that the 
star actor had a weakness for " sympathetic " parts, and 
no doubt his mien and manner were admirably adapted 
to the impersonation of majestic priests. 



266 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

" Have many of your actors the intellectual power to 
conceive and render historical heroes ? " 

" No ; I fear it must be admitted that the great fault 
of too many actors is illiteracy. But in my young days 
we were scarcely to blame for this. The Government 
actually forbade us to receive any other than a theatrical 
education, which, as then understood, sufficiently taxed 
our time and strength. We were obliged to learn and 
reproduce exactly the traditional tones, gestures, and 
actions associated with any particular part." 

" What is your opinion of foreign methods of 
acting ? " 

" I have only seen a few amateurs at the Legations, 
and cannot form an opinion. But when Mr. Fukuchi 
and Mr. Osada wrote a little piece in one act, half in 
French and half in Japanese, in which I had the honour 
of appearing with Madame Theo, I found it most 
difficult to sustain my part, since the lady's words and 
by-play were alike mysterious." A grim smile accom- 
panied this souvenir of that comedietta, " The Green- 
eyed Monster." 

" I suppose you have improved in many ways on the 
old-fashioned style of acting ? " 

This widely cast question invited such a shoal of 
answers that the conscientious examinee paused to 
consider. 

" I will try to mention a few of the changes which I 
have done my best to bring about. The first thing I 
aimed at was greater freedom of interpretation. Tradi- 
tion weighed like a millstone on the actor's neck. 
Instead of painfully and slavishly copying a predecessor, 
I set the example, as soon as I felt influential enough, 
of forming and putting into action my own conception 
of a character. But it was a hard task. Then I tried 



AFTERNOON CALLS 267 

to introduce more natural diction. Ranting and hollow 
declamation were the rule. Even now one is compelled 
to pitch the voice very high on account of the music, 
which some actors find an aid to delivery." 
11 But isn't that most fatiguing for the voice ? " 
" Not in well-built theatres, like the Kabukiza, where 
the vaulted roof leaves nothing acoustically to be 
desired." 

"And your famous facial expression ?" 
"Ah! that, I think, was a real reform. The old 
actors' faces were barred with red and blue stripes to 
make them look ferocious, and, though they may have 
terrified the audience, they could not impress it in any 
other way, for variety of expression was impossible. 
Now, without discarding paint altogether, we aim at 
conveying all the emotions by play of feature, leaving 
sometimes to the musicians the task of rendering them 
into words." 

In this respect I was able to confirm the actor's 
words by personal observation. Nothing had struck 
me as more peculiarly characteristic of a Japanese 
audience than its delight in histrionic grimace. The 
loudest applause, the frenetic shouts of "Hi-ya! 
Hi-ya ! " had been evoked in my hearing, not by 
repartee or tirade, but always by convulsive contor- 
tions of visage in moments of supreme misery or rage. 
The word grimace connotes, I am afraid, that con- 
tempt, allied with coarseness of sensibility, which the 
stoical Anglo-Saxon is apt to entertain towards more 
gesticular and sensitive races. But some of Sara 
Bernhardt's death-scenes would be appreciated at their 
full value by the acute, minute observers of Tokyo, 
just as all Paris was thrilled and captivated by Sada 
Yacco's realistic dying. 



268 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

" Is the social status of the actor higher than it used 
to be, Mr. Danjuro ? " 

" I think it is. Speaking for myself, many of our 
nobles and one of our princes have done me the 
honour of inviting me to their houses, but such invita- 
tions are by no means common. The illiteracy of 
actors, to which I alluded just now, is a barrier to their 
social advancement." 

" If I may broach a delicate question, will you tell 
me if the paragraphs circulated in the Japanese Press 
are correct ? They state that your season of four 
weeks last April in Osaka brought you in a sum of 
50,000 yen (nearly ^5000), and that out of this 
amount you gave away in presents something like 
20,000 yen (^2000)." 

The old man smiled, less grimly. " It is quite 
true," he said. " But the presents are imposed by 
etiquette, and such customs are more or less reciprocal. 
The total receipts of the theatre, as certified by the 
Government auditor, after the tax had been deducted, 
amounted to 130,000 yen (;£ 13,000)." 

" How is it you have avoided the master-passion of 
our London actors to become an actor-manager ? " 

" I think a manager must be sorely tempted to put 
money first and art second. I often advise authors to 
make certain alterations in the plays for which I am 
engaged, but the responsibility of entire management 
would distract me from the purely artistic aspect of 
representation." 

A mischievous recollection of Delobelle's "Je n'ai 
pas le droit de renoncer a mon art " occurred to me, 
and I cynically wondered whether management might 
not diminish (it could hardly increase) the lion's share 
of the receipts. 

"Will you ask Mr. Danjuro," I said, "if he will 



AFTERNOON CALLS 269 

like to put any questions to me about European actors 
and acting ? I shall be most delighted to give him 
information on the subject." 

The answer was a blank negative. For the patri- 
otic actor no stage existed but his own. He had 
never been abroad ; his interest in foreign things was 
limited to the flattering curiosity of foreign admirers. 

The interview had already lasted an hour, for the 
translation of question and answer from concise Eng- 
lish into more elaborate Japanese, and vice versa, was 
a rather slow process. I therefore begged the in- 
valuable Kishimoto to say that I could not think of 
trespassing any longer on Mr. Danjuro's leisure, and 
would spare him one or two other interrogations which 
had suggested themselves. Thanking him in my best 
Japanese, I was rising to go, but our unwearied host 
would not hear of it, and insisted on my continuing to 
the bitter end. 

4 'Well, since you are so kind, I should much like to 
hear your opinion of the soshi shibai." 

Knowing that the j^z-theatre must appear to a 
conservative actor as red a rag as the Independent 
Theatre to Mr. Clement Scott or the Theatre de 
l'GEuvre to the late M. Sarcey, I awaited the reply 
with interest. But the gallant attempt to destroy 
feudal spectacular drama with ammunition drawn from 
French and English arsenals had failed so miser- 
ably, that the patriot could afford to be generous. 
His eyes twinkled as he answered: " Certainly some 
of the soshi had great talent, but it was all of the 
theoretic kind. They had splendid theories about 
reforming the stage and bringing it into harmony with 
progress, with the spirit of the age, and other fine 
things. But, when they had to translate their theories 
into practice, the result fell very far short of their 



270 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

aims. Their writers were amateurs, their actors were 
amateurs ; they knew nothing of stage-craft. The 
public, excited by the promises, were willing enough 
to give them a trial, but, as they did not know how to 
interest the public " 

" Then you gave them no assistance, Mr. Danjuro ? " 

" None at all." 

" Are you blessed with a censor of plays ? " 

" There is a censorship, but it falls under the head 
of ordinary police duties, and is not specially limited 
to the theatre. Political and licentious passages are 
carefully excised before performance, and I doubt if 
the authority of the censor has been exercised in the 
Meiji era (since the Restoration)." 

" How is it that foreign plays fail to interest your 
playgoers ? " 

It is my honest belief that Kishimoto, from a mis- 
taken idea of sparing my feelings, abridged consider- 
ably the answer to this question. Both he and 
Mr. Danjuro chuckled a great deal, and seemed to be 
exchanging sympathetic affirmations. Then came the 
crushing rejoinder : " Because in all your plays the 
attitude of men to women seems to us not only irra- 
tional but ridiculous." 

I changed the subject. " Which classes go most to 
the theatre ? " 

"The middle and lower classes. Since the Emperor 
witnessed a performance in Count Inonyes house in 
1886 it has become more fashionable for men of rank 
to go occasionally, but it cannot be said that the 
aristocracy, as a class, patronise the stage." 

" Can Mr. Danjuro tell me if the mawari-butai, or 
revolving stage, resembling what the Greeks used to 
call eccyclema, is native or imported ? Some Japanese 



AFTERNOON CALLS 271 

have told me that it was probably adopted from a 
foreign source." Mr. Danjuro held the opposite opinion. 

" And how far is your stage controlled by guilds ? " 

u The old system has entirely broken down. For- 
merly some six or seven families had complete control 
of the theatre. A novice could only enter the profes- 
sion through adoption by one or other of these. He 
received an elaborate education ; he adopted the name 
and a modified form of the crest of his patron. The 
right to play certain parts was vested in certain actors, 
who transmitted the privilege. But now all that is 
changed. Any one can £0 on the stage and play any 
part he likes. There is no restriction and no training 
either." 

" And is the special tax on actors now abolished, 
giving place to an income-tax ? " 

" No ; that is an error. We still pay a heavy tax, 
irrespective of income." 

" One more question. Have you any association 
corresponding to that which in England is known by 
the name of the Actors' Benevolent Fund ? " 

" Yes ; we have a large guild, which undertakes to 
help members overtaken by misfortune and to expel 
others whose actions bring discredit on the stage. For 
we love our art, and are rewarded by its growing 
popularity with all classes of the community." 

On this patriotic note I thought it well to close. I 
urged Kishimoto to exhaust his stock of honorifics in 
a suitable vote of thanks, and, as I took leave of the 
patient, archiepiscopal veteran, I wondered how a 
mosquito feels when it has been stinging with imper- 
tinent curiosity, hour after hour, some grave, imme- 
morial image of Buddha. 



THE SCARLET LADY 



THE SCARLET LADY 



I 



— " La dame en noir des carrefours 
Qu'attendre apres de si longs jours? 

♦ . '#■ * • 

— Je suis la mordeuse, entre mes bras, 

De toute force exaspe*re*e 
Vers les toujours memes helas ; 

Ou devorante — ou devoree. 

Mes dents, comme des pierres d'or, 

Mettent en moi leur e'tincelle : 
Je suis belle comme la mort 

Et suis publique aussi comme elle. 

Aux douloureux traceurs d'eclairs 

Et de desirs sur mes murailles, 
J'offre le catafalque de mes chairs 

Et les cierges des funerailles. 

Je leur donne tout mon remords 
Pour les souler au seuil du porche 

Et le blaspheme de mon corps 

Brandi vers Dieu comme une torche. 

* * * * 

— La dame en noir des carrefours 
Qu'attendre apres de si longs jours 
Qu'attendre ? 

— J'attends cet homme au couteau rouge." 

Emile Verhaeren, 



276 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

In Europe she wears black. That colour is better 
suited to the ignoble tragedy of which she is both 
heroine and victim. At night you may see her hover- 
ing furtively about the edge of a square, where shadows 
hang darkest, or plucking at passers-by with words of 
vulgar endearment. All she has to offer is momentary 
pasture for the teeth of desire, since love and confidence, 
the lanterns of happy wedlock, shed no light on her 
outcast bed. Society damns, but cannot destroy, her. 
Shame and solitude are the wages which corrode her 
soul even more rapidly than her body, though that has 
become in Christian eyes, as the poet so finely says, 
"a blasphemy, brandished like a torch before God" ; 
but man, denying her the status of any but an uncon- 
victed criminal, forces her to drop lower and lower 
through remorse and infamy to the hospital-pallet or 
the assassin's knife. 

How different is her fortune in Japan ! There she 
wears scarlet, garish and bright as the five years' 
revelry to which, as they might sell a platter or a cup, 
her parents have sold her ; but she is not doomed to 
the black degradation which robs her Western sister of 
self-respect. Though the loss of freedom be irksome 
and submission to buyers disagreeable, yet she is a 
member of " the oldest profession in the world," in a 
country where it is not without honour. She is sur- 
rounded by companions, well fed and well housed, 
protected from robbery or murder by the Government 
and the goddess Inari ; above all, she does not live 
ashamed and boycotted, but plays her part in an active 
round of duties and ceremonies. If remembered pre- 
cepts of religious teaching ever visit her, they come, not 
to threaten, but to console. So far from slipping hell- 
wards, she is earning the approbation which Heaven 



THE SCARLET LADY 277 

accords to filial self-sacrifice. Happy she is not, 
though she may one day become so, for, when her 
contract shall have expired, marriage will be no 
impossibility. But she is much less unhappy than if 
she wore black. 

It might be thought that the operation of natural 
laws, regulating supply and demand, would sufficiently 
account for her existence. But those who prefer fancy 
to fact are given the choice between two legends. 
According to one, the Emperor Komatsu Tenno sent 
forth his eight daughters to be women of pleasure and 
set the fashion in seven provinces; from them the 
courtesans of Settsu, Hiogo, and Eguchi were said to 
be descended. Though one may doubt the authenticity 
of this imperial origin, the incongruity between rank 
and the exercise of the scarlet profession did not affect 
the Eastern mind, as it does our minds, with a sense of 
repulsion. On the contrary, it is no uncommon thing 
in the old romances to find a heroine of noble birth 
resorting, reluctantly indeed, but without any feeling of 
irremediable guilt, to the sale of her charms, until she 
should find a chance of regaining liberty and her lover. 
In fact, one of the classes into which courtesans were 
divided, that of tsubone-joro, was so called from the 
word tsubone, signifying the ladies' apartments in a 
Daimyo's house, because the daughter of Ichinomiya, a 
Daimyo, being driven by stress of weather to Hiroshima 
and by want of money to sell her favours, became 
prototype and founder of aristocratic demireps. The 
country-folk, respecting her station, would not reckon 
her among common joro, but prefixed the substantive 
tsubone rather than blur their nice appreciation of 
class distinction. The second legend sounds less 
apocryphal. After the great sea-fight of Dan-no-ura 



278 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

in 1 185, the widows and daughters of the defeated 
Taira clan " were forced for daily bread to sell their 
bodies in the streets of Shimonoseki." But at least 
four centuries before that date the Hetaira had begun 
to set her mark on history and literature. 

The poetry of the Nara period, which reflects the 
elegant court-culture of the eighth century and is repre- 
sented by Manyoshiu (" The Collection of One Thou- 
sand Leaves "), was largely written by women, and 
contains at least one song by a " jugyojofu," or "woman 
who goes about for pleasure." The kugutsu, who 
were summoned by innkeepers for the convenience of 
guests and were of much lower status, composed many 
famous little songs, whose memory has survived that of 
their authors. But the first light-o'-love whose orb 
burns brightly on the stormy darkness of the twelfth 
century, when Taira and Minamoto deluged the rice- 
fields with blood, was Tora Gozen. The most beautiful 
courtesan in Oiso, she became the mistress of the elder 
Soga, who slew his father's murderer in the hunting 
camp of the Shogun Yoritomo at the foot of Fuji. 
Their tale is told in an historical novel, " Soga Mono- 
gatari," and the tourist who descends from the sulphur- 
springs of Ashinoyu to Lake Hakone will still pass on 
his way three monuments of stone, the smallest being 
commemorative of Tora. More striking still is the 
tribute paid to Takao, another type of immortal frailty, 
who refused with scorn the Lord of Sendai's offer to 
become his property. Endowed with every accom- 
plishment, she enjoyed a higher social position than 
the geisha of those days, and regaining her freedom, 
was faithful (so far as professional exigencies would 
allow) to a lover of humble rank. Not only has her 
native hamlet of Shiogama erected a memorial-stone to 



THE SCARLET LADY 279 

honour her dishonour, but the priests of the little 
Myo-onji temple jealously guard a faded fragment of 
her wardrobe. There was never great hostility in 
Japan between the goddess of love and more ascetic 
deities. In more than one locality you will find a 
row of temples fronted by a row of pleasure-houses, 
that the pilgrims may impartially indulge body and 
soul. 

When the Ashikaga Shoguns made Kydto a centre 
of nobler art and more delicate refinement, the Scarlet 
Lady lost ground. The curse of Confucius, stigmatis- 
ing her sex, had crossed the Yellow Sea. Painters 
preferred the beauty of snow and tree and bird to her 
fatal beauty; poets, imbued with Buddhism, wrote 
passion-plays on other passions than hers. Neither in 
the serious No nor comical Kiogen does she cut any 
figure at all. It would almost seem that for two 
centuries men found ceremonial tea-drinking and the 
excitements of civil war more congenial than her 
society. 

At last the queen came by her own. When the 
feudal nobles went down before Iyeyasu and took his 
iron yoke upon their necks, the military despot was 
seen to be a popular liberator. Art and literature 
ceased to be the precious playthings of an aesthetic 
aristocracy. Novelists, playwrights, painters rose 
from the masses and worked for the masses. Reject- 
ing in scorn the moony fetters of Chinese convention, 
they painted in broad colours and aimed at broad 
effects. Yedo, the new capital, without culture and 
without traditions, became their home and their hunting- 
ground. Of these turbulent subjects Venus Pandemos 
was naturally queen, and since her accession in the 
seventeenth century to the present day many measures 



280 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

of restraint, more or less fruitless, have been adopted 
by scandalised authority to curb her sovereignty. 

As for the novelists, three great names in Japanese 
fiction may be cited at once. Saikaku, who died at 
Osaka in 1693, wrote an enormous number of amusing 
stories and sketches of contemporary life. The rollick- 
ing life of the gay lupanars was his favourite theme. 
Mr. Aston assures us that "the very titles are too 
gross for quotation." Even his contemporaries were 
shocked, and a virulent criticism, entitled " Saikaku in 
Hell," brought about the suppression of his works by 
the Government. A new edition has lately been per- 
mitted to appear. In the next century his example 
was followed and bettered by Jisho, whose name 
signifies " Spontaneous Laughter." He was a Kyoto 
publisher, and his place of business, the Hachimoniji-ya, 
or Figure Eight House, was as popular in its day with 
lovers of sex-novels as the Bodley Head itself. He 
had a collaborator, called Kesiki ; and whether he 
supplied the humour and Kesiki the psychology I 
cannot say, but their joint productions aimed at some- 
thing higher than Rabelaisian mirth. They aspired 
to the laurels of Theophrastus, delineating " Types of 
Elderly Men," " Types of Merchants' Assistants," 
" Types of Girlhood," and the like. But whatever 
the type selected, the reader was sure to pass most of 
his time with it in fast society. Well, Spontaneous 
Laughter died, but his firm continued to publish sJtare- 
bon y or witty books, until the end of the eighteenth 
century, when once more the authorities swooped 
down and made an end. The fame of both these 
novelists is eclipsed by that of KiOden ( 1 76 1-1 861), 
the father of the romantic novel. His predecessors 
had made men titter, but he bade them shudder or 



THE SCARLET LADY 281 

weep, at the harlot's fate. He proved the sincerity of 
his sympathy with women of that class by marrying 
two of them in succession. They are said to have 
been excellent wives. At the age of thirty he was 
11 condemned to fifty days' handcuffs (in his own 
house)," for circulating what he called an " Edifying 
Story-book." His subsequent stories were mostly 
founded on less dangerous themes. 

If any should suppose that the writers of stories and 
plays on this subject had no other purpose than to 
supply unwholesome food for unclean appetites, he 
would be egregiously mistaken. The author of a 
witty book might indeed be liable to this imputation, 
though the naif attitude of his fellow-countrymen to 
physical facts which it is our habit to ignore robs 
the pat epithet " pornographic " of much opprobrium. 
Still there were limits of propriety, which, in his zeal 
to amuse, he frequently left behind. But the dramatist 
had every justification for dramatising the Unfortunate 
Lady, who appealed most strongly to his imagination 
and his heart. To begin with, his audience loved a 
spectacle, and what spectacular setting could dazzle 
them more than the spacious Kuruwa with its balconied 
palaces, divided by cherry-trees and hung with showy 
lanterns ? What other section of society could provide 
such a feast of colour for beauty-loving eyes as these 
priestesses of pleasure, when they moved in procession 
through thronging suitors in their gorgeous sweeping 
robes, or sat superbly immobile, like painted idols, 
their high coiffures haloed with radiating pins of pearl 
and silver and tortoise-shell ? And beneath all that 
picturesque elegance throbbed a tragic, adventurous 
existence. Other women passed silently from father 
to husband, from mother to mother-in-law, their lives 



282 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

arranged for them on lines of tranquil duty. But the 
Unfortunate Lady, transferred in girlhood, a chattel or 
a heroine, from village poverty to urban splendour, 
becoming half a queen and half a slave, was both free 
and not free to follow the voice of passion, which her 
secluded sisters had often never heard. They slept 
peacefully, with nothing to greatly hope or fear from 
the hand of destiny, but to her at any moment might 
come a Perseus, cleaving the dragon's mail with 
golden sword and delivering Andromeda from deadly 
servitude. Out of the hundreds of plays devoted 
to Andromeda, I will recall one, which has sunk 
most deeply into popular favour, and which I saw 
enacted before a weeping audience at the Kabuki-za 
theatre. 

His name was not Perseus, but Gompachi, and he is 
supposed to have lived no more than two hundred and 
fifty years ago — the hero of this typical romance. He 
had the misfortune at the age of sixteen to kill one of 
his relations in a quarrel about a dog, and was obliged 
to flee for refuge to the capital. On his way to Yedo he 
was roused at midnight from his bed at a wayside inn 
by a beautiful girl, who warned him that a band of 
robbers, having stolen her from her parents, intended 
to slay him and steal his sword before daybreak. This 
was not Andromeda, but Komurasaki. As in duty 
bound, the gallant samurai cut down the whole band 
and restored their captive to her father, a wealthy 
merchant, who, for his part, asked nothing better than 
to marry his daughter to so dashing a youth. But 
this would have been against all precedent. For 
Andromeda to rescue Perseus and bestow on him the 
hand of a prospective heiress would have been to 
reverse the roles in a most unbecoming manner. 



THE SCARLET LADY 283 

Gompachi, therefore, setting ambition before love, 
pursued his way to Yedo. There he fell into dissolute 
habits, and, some years after, hearing much talk of a 
new beauty in Yoshiwara, discovered her to be no 
other than Komurasaki. Her family had fallen into 
dire poverty, and, to alleviate their sufferings, she had 
become an inmate of the huge metropolitan pleasure- 
house. This time Andromeda was in her proper 
place, the helpless victim of a ruthless monster, but to 
strike off her manacles a golden sword was needed, 
and this Perseus found it difficult to obtain. He took 
to robbery, which again involved murder, for his own 
fortune was far too meagre to allow of frequent meet- 
ings, far less of redeeming his sweetheart. At last he 
was caught and beheaded as a common malefactor, 
before he could compass his mission, and Komurasaki, 
accomplishing her own salvation, stabbed herself to 
death upon his tomb. If you should visit Meguro, 
about four miles west of T5kyd, when the peonies are 
in bloom, you will have no trouble in ascertaining the 
position of their grave. It is called Hiyoku-zuka after 
the Hiyoku, " a fabulous double bird, which is an 
emblem of constancy in love." 

Tragedies of this romantic character were very 
frequent in the Yedo period, though they generally 
ended in shinju> the simultaneous suicide of girl and 
guest, who thus hoped to enter on new life together. 
In fact, so frequent were they in the Genroku and 
Shotoku eras (1688-17 15), tnat tne authorities tried 
to rob this death of attraction by cruel indignities to 
the dead. The bodies were exposed to view for 
three days on Nihon-bashi, hands and feet being tied 
together. Then the Eta, social pariahs, wrapped them 
in straw matting and cast them into a pit. It was 



284 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

thought that after such a dog's burial their ghosts 
would not return to haunt the living, but it was cus- 
tomary to make their story into a song, which would 
become a nine days' pathos in Asakusa. 

Not pathos but majesty is the dominating note of 
the Ukiyoye painters' homage to their Madonna. Easy 
to recognise by her distinctive garb — the tall coiffure > 
transfixed with branching pins, the reversed sash with 
satchel-like bow in front, the high clogs of black 
lacquer — she is by far the most familiar figure to 
Western eyes through the medium of plebeian art. 
Cheap colour-prints disseminated her image from 
Boston to Paris; enthusiasts gave eager eye to her 
hieratic grace. Utamaro, who openly lived in Yoshi- 
wara, which he served with purse and brush, was the 
first to win French homage through De Goncourt's 
advocacy for his stately mistresses of preternatural 
height. Daintier and more human, but not less 
divine, the monochromatic ladies of Moronobu, the 
green-and-rose ladies of Kiyonobu, the sirens beloved 
of Kiyonaga, of Toyokuni, of Kunisada, followed one 
another round the world, encircling it with a Circean 
spell. Banish their portraits from the collector's 
gallery, and you leave it bare of three or four of the 
greatest names on the roll of Tokyo artists. On the 
other hand, you will more easily defend the Japan- 
olater's thesis, that part of the superiority of Japanese 
over Occidental art lies in its contempt for the " eter- 
nal feminine." 

It was Iyeyasu, the great organiser, who made it 
part of the State's business to centralise and control 
sporadic vice In the capital. Before his time the 
"social evil," as it is called, was free to spread its virus 
where it might, to the hurt of private and public weal. 



THE SCARLET LADY 285 

But one day, as the conqueror was returning from the 
battle of Sekigahara and taking his ease in the tea- 
house of Shoji Jinyemon, at Shinagawa, the proprietor, 
whose efforts to please were seconded by eight red- 
aproned waitresses of unusual beauty, so impressed the 
Shogun with his talent for that kind of management, 
that he was appointed nanuski, or director-in -chief, 
of the Moto-Yoshiwara, founded in response to many 
petitions in 16 18. Into this quarter, which either took 
its name from Yoshiwara, a town on the Tokaido 
famed for the prettiness of its daughters, or from its 
literal import, the " place of reeds," being situated in a 
marsh on the outskirts of Yedo, all the courtesans 
who had infested various portions of the city were 
gathered, licensed, and supervised. It at once became 
a little city in itself, wisely and usefully administered, 
and, being burnt down fifty years later, was replaced 
by the new or Shin-Yoshiwara, which remains in 
most essentials to this day a copy of its predecessor. 
It was divided into eight wards, each of which had 
responsible recorders, whose duty was to keep order, 
to guard against fires, and report suspicious characters 
to the police. Policemen stood at the gates, and every 
guest was required to enter his name in a register, 
though he might disguise it by changing the cha- 
racters, if it were phonetically correct. At one time 
Christians and gamblers were forbidden to enter, 
while the samurai, or military retainer, whose Roman 
discipline excluded visits to Capua, was provided by the 
Amigasa tea-houses with a large braid hat to conceal 
his features. Espionage, as always under the Toku- 
gawa regime, was a pronounced feature of this autono- 
mous system, which was, and still is, of immense 
service in the detection of crime, since ill-gotten gains 



286 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

were generally disbursed in that locality, affording clues 
to the identity of their possessor. 

The organisation of each house, or kashi-zashiki, 
was elaborate and peculiar. The master, or teishu, 
though compelled to live on the premises, was seldom 
visible. His was the unseen hand which directed 
and received. He engaged at least three wakaimono 
(young fellows), supplied to him by a detective 
agency, of whom the banto, or clerk, made purchases 
and kept accounts ; the mise-ban, or lady's attendant, 
walked behind her with open umbrella to avert sun 
or rain, when she passed in procession through the 
main street, Naka-no-cho ; the nikai-ma-washi, or 
upper-storey man, looked to the lamps, the bedding, 
and other details of domestic comfort. Beside these 
were messengers, gardeners, bath-men, cooks, and 
night-watchman, who hailed the advent of each 
nocturnal hour with noisy wooden clappers. The 
staff of female assistants varied with the status of the 
house. If the girls belonged to the highest class, 
called taiyu or oiran, to each was allotted two child 
attendants, kamuro, whose dress must be of white 
bleached linen, decorated with a pine-tree pattern and 
crossed on the left shoulder by a black cape bearing 
in gold letters their mistress's name. When these 
little girls reached the age of fourteen, if their parents 
so wished it, they became furisode shinzo, or shinzo 
with flowing sleeves, and, without altogether ceasing 
to be attendants, began to learn the arts of singing, 
and arranging flowers and making tea. Yet a third 
class of servants bore the name of banshin. These 
were generally discharged joro, who wore striped 
crape with a sash of black satin, and had the right to 
refuse admission to any whose respectability appeared 



THE SCARLET LADY 287 

doubtful. But the most powerful and most unpopular 
person in the whole establishment was named Yarite* % 
or Spear- Hand. She was responsible for the be- 
haviour of all under her charge, and might administer 
corporal punishment. If a girl were summoned before 
the local justice, it was she who escorted her and 
answered the questions of the judge. Her room faced 
the top of the staircase, and none could pass to the 
inner chambers without propitiating the dragon on 
the threshold. 

But to pass from the inner chambers to the world 
without the Yoshiwara was rarely permitted to such 
closely guarded prisoners. The prison might be 
known as the " House of the Myriad Flowers," or the 
" House of the Eight Banners," or the " House of the 
Ten Thousand Plums," but it was none the less a 
prison. Not one of its inmates, neither " Evening 
Mist," nor " Filmy Cloud," nor the " Face of Evening/' 
could glide imperceptibly from its vigilant constraint. 
If her parents were dangerously ill and lived not too 
far away, a girl was sometimes allowed to visit them, 
being given a label, which she must return at sunset. 
If she were ill herself, she might consult a doctor out- 
side the quarter ; and all had the privilege of going in 
a party to Mukojima in the season of cherry-blossom. 
But no other exeat was accorded. A runaway was 
invariably caught, and the expenses of capture were 
deducted from her subsequent earnings. At the age 
of twenty-five she was sure of regaining her liberty. 

It must not be supposed that the five years' durance 
were years of unrelieved servitude. As month fol- 
lowed month, the monotony was broken by a round 
of kindly festivals. On New Year's Day the whole 
household was assembled by Spear- Hand to pay con- 



288 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

ventional compliments to the master and mistress, 
who requited this courtesy with handsome presents. 
Every joro received two dresses of silk crape ; every 
shinzo two of pongee ; every child attendant a dress 
of white linen with pine-tree pattern. Branches of 
pine and bamboo were suspended from the entrance, 
and above the lintels of the door-posts flamed a scarlet 
lobster. On each associated tea-house were bestowed 
sake' cups of kiri wood, stamped with the donor's 
crest At least three grand processions were held to 
celebrate the planting of the flowers. In April, when 
cherry-blossom was set before the tea-houses and 
along the main-street of Naka-no-cho, the balconies 
were crowded with spectators, the doorways hung 
with cherry-coloured curtains, as the stately line of 
magnificently-attired beauties with their attendant 
children and umbrella-bearers moved slowly on its 
way to the temple of Inari. In June, when iris was 
planted, the heavily-wadded dresses were laid aside, 
and lightly robed, like winged zephyrs, as though to 
personify their names, " White Cloud," and " A Thou- 
sand Springs," and " The Smell of the Plum Blossom " 
would pass with all their fanciful cortege through the 
sun-lit Place of Reeds. 

" It ver et Venus, et veris praenuntius ante 
Pennatus graditur Zephyrus, vestigia propter 
Flora quibus mater prsespargens ante viai 
Cuncta coloribus egregiis et odoribus opplet." 

October brought chrysanthemum and signalised the 
close of summer. The imperial blossom soaked in 
sake' was eaten on the ninth day ; the big hibachi were 
lit ; the human butterflies took a last flutter through 
the streets, their frail wings sheathed in velvet and 
brocade against the winter. 



THE SCARLET LADY 289 

Other festivals, more intimate than these, assuaged 
the rigour of imprisonment. Though Inari had four 
temples in which to welcome her votaries, other divi- 
nities, too, offered distraction and consolation. When 
the evil spirits had been exorcised on the four- 
teenth day of the first month, the field was clear to 
garner divine favour. Ebisu, the jovial, pot-bellied 
god of good luck, claimed his meed of fish and sakd ; 
the sacred monkey-dance preceded the fete of Inari ; 
Tanabata, the star of happy marriage, was warmly 
greeted with poems and fans and paper stars, which 
budded on bamboo branches fastened to the door ; 
the feast of lanterns lasted a month, flooding the 
dark with radiance, but on the evening sacred to the 
memory of ancestors no guests were admitted, and the 
girls were free to hold communion with those parental 
dead whose exigence pressed so hardly on their 
flower-sweet heyday of life. Then O Tsuki San, the 
Lady Moon, must be " looked at " on three successive 
nights, while persimmon, rice dumplings, boiled beans, 
and chestnuts were set outside the house on tiny 
tripods, to catch her auspicious rays. On the occasion 
of the annual fire-incantation oranges were scattered 
about the garden and scrambled for by children, and 
three weeks before the year ended came the great 
cleaning, the preparation of rice-cakes and countless 
emblems for New Year's Day. 

The observance of oyaku, when one of the little 
girls in waiting became a Shinzo with flowing sleeves, 
involved much expense for the anejoro to whose 
service she had been attached. First ohaguro> to 
blacken her teeth, was collected from seven friends ; 
presents were made of buckwheat and red beans and 
rice to the tea-houses which they had visited together ; 



T 



290 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

a row of cooking vessels, filled with steaming food, was 
covered with lengths of silk crape and damask outside 
the house, while indoors a table was set out with fans, 
tobacco-pouches, and embroidered towels for the geisha 
and servants. For three days the newly promoted 
damsel would promenade the Naka-no-cho, wearing on 
the first day a long red cloak, on the second a purple 
cloak, on the third one of pale blue. The coiffure 
also varied from day to day, and the total expense of 
this ceremonious coming of age varied from twenty to 
forty pounds. 

Occasionally it would happen that a guest fell in 
love with a girl and wished to marry her. Such a 
consummation was the object of many vows to Inari 
and the subject of many poems addressed to the Star 
of the Weaver at the festival of Tanabata. If he 
could raise the sum of 600 ryo (about £60), the rest 
was easy. Debts had to be paid, innumerable gifts 
conferred on patrons, companions, and attendants, of 
whom farewell was taken at a great feast on the day 
of departure. It requires much suffering and evil 
influence to uproot from the heart of any Japanese 
woman the flowers of gratitude and affection. If 
tradition may be credited, more than one suitor who 
anticipated Aubrey Tanqueray's experiment was re- 
warded for his courage with a happier fate. When 
the heavy black gate clanged behind her, happy 
indeed was the Scarlet Lady to put off her state-robes 
and become the obscure angel of a long-prayed-for 
benefactor. Sometimes she turned out badly. In that 
case the husband had the right to send her back, 
wearing a gown of penitential grey, to finish out her 
term in Yoshiwara. 



II 

How much colour had been washed out of the fore- 
going picture by Western disapproval, filtering through 
merchants and missionaries, I was curious to learn. 
To their credit or discredit be it said, none of my 
Tokyo friends cared to visit the Shin-Yoshiwara in the 
company of an alien. They were not exactly hindered 
by moral scruples, but rather by a disinclination to 
disclose the seamy side of their fellow countrymen 
to censorious eyes. They professed ignorance and 
changed the subject to railways or ironclads. How- 
ever, one evening I met by chance the secretary of a 
famous lawyer-politician, who was taking a country 
cousin to see the sights of the capital ; and, as he 
obligingly invited me to join the party, we made our 
way together through the maze of variety-shows and 
toy-shops which surround the Temple of Kwannon at 
Asakusa, until we reached the high embankment of 
Nihon-tsutsumi. 

As we stood on the great dyke in a whirr of hurry- 
ing rickshaws, the country on the outer side stretched 
away into darkness, like the waste tracks which border 
the northern exterior boulevards of Paris. But at our 
feet, brilliant with light and clamorous with samzsens, 
lay a clustering mass of lofty buildings, their roofs 



292 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

adorned with wooden seven-pronged rakes, which I 
had seen so often in old prints and knew to be emblems 
of good luck, purchased in November by pious traders 
from the priests of the Temple of the Eagle. 

We walked down the slope of Emonzaka (the hill 
of the collar), which perhaps took its name from the 
habit of the Tokyo blood to adjust the kimono collar 
in careful folds at the moment of entry, and traversed 
Gojikken-machi, the street of fifty tea-houses leading 
to the ponderous gate, where two dapper policemen, 
neatly gloved and sworded, kept watch and ward. 
Now we are between handsome edifices, four storeys 
high, adorned with balconies and electric light, in the 
broad central Naka-no-cho, which three narrow turn- 
ings intersect on either side, containing shops of less 
imposing dimensions. The upper storeys tell no tales, 
though their paper-panelled shutters give twinkling 
and tinkling signs of revelry. On the ground-floor is 
an unbroken series of shop-windows, not fronted with 
plate-glass as in Piccadilly nor open to the street as 
in the Ginza, but palisaded with wooden bars from 
three to seven inches wide. And behind the bars, on 
silk or velvet cushions against a gaudy background of 
draped mirrors and ornamental woodwork, sit the 
wares — a row of powdered, painted, exquisitely 
upholstered victims. Most of them look happy 
enough, as they chatter or smoke or run laughing to 
the barrier to greet a passing acquaintance, but I 
know what heroic endurance is masked by a Japanese 
smile, and the sight of caged women turns me sick. 
Then I reflect that Western sentiment, however 
justified by inherited ethics, is scarcely the best 
auxiliary of fair judgment, so, striving to convert my 
conscience to a camera, I follow my companions 



THE SCARLET LADY 293 

through the strange avenue of animated dolls. If 
they were really dolls of cunning fabrication, how 
much more readily could one inspect and appraise 
them ! It seems that the most costly are reserved 
for their own compatriots. An English painter was, 
indeed, permitted to begin the portrait of one of these, 
but, when he came back to finish his work, admittance 
was refused. It was easy to believe that the inmates 
of the best houses were socially superior to the rest, 
for those whom I saw had gentle, refined faces, and 
did not raise their eyes from book or embroidery. 

The least expensive dolls-houses — they were of 
four grades — were decorated in execrable taste, and 
the Circes who cried or beckoned from their red-and- 
gilt dens had harsh voices and were of ungainly build. 
But between these extremes were some groups of 
prettily dressed exhibits, whose rich yet sober colour- 
ing harmonised admirably with the vision of whatever 
artist had been invited to decorate their show-room. 
There was the House of the Well of the Long Bloom- 
ing Flowers, which should have been isolated for sheer 
loveliness from its flaunting neighbours. Behind the 
motionless houri, whose bright black tresses and mauve 
kimono were starred with white flowers, ran a riot 
of branch and blossom on wall and screen. Had 
Mohammed been Japanese, here was a tableau to win 
believers with the lure of a sensual paradise, but for 
the fact that, having realised so material a heaven on 
earth, the most inquisitive nation in the world would 
have demanded less familiar felicity. Beautiful, too, 
was the House of the Three Sea-shores, whose triple 
tide of waveless blue seemed silently advancing to 
reclaim the mermaid-daughters of Benten, who waited 
in such pathetic patience on the beach for a new 



294 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

Urashima. My fancy was most taken by the House of 
the Dragon Cape, for the ancient ferocity of the saurian 
symbol, wrought in dusky bronze, not only fascinated 
with its boldness of coil and curve, but hovered with 
appropriate cruelty over the meek prisoners, coquet- 
tishly disguised. By the time we arrived at the lair 
of the Dragon I was thoroughly tired. We had been 
tramping and gazing for more than an hour at nearly 
two thousand replicas of the same figure, watching its 
movements and conjecturing its feelings. The cages 
were beginning to empty, as the more attractive centre- 
pieces found purchasers. I detected a certain im- 
patience in my companions' bearing, and I was on the 
point of taking leave of them when the secretary 
suggested that, if I would like to enter the Dragon- 
house and take notes of the interior, he would explain 
my mission to the proprietor. 

It was needful to release three damsels from the 
public gaze if we would enter, and this we cheer- 
fully did, bidding Young Bamboo, Golden Harp, and 
River of Song escape to their chambers. Then, 
leaving our shoes in charge of bowing attendants, we 
climbed to the first floor and began the evening with 
a mild tea-party. The Shinzo, in black dresses, brought 
in lacquer trays, on which were scarlet bowls contain- 
ing eggs, fish, soup, and other delicacies. Sakd flowed 
more copiously than tea. I was sorry to hear that 
the old-time processions were falling into disuse, and, 
though not yet abandoned entirely, were losing their 
antique splendour. The taiyu, too, was a thing of 
the past. The aureole of combs, the manifold robe 
over robe, the child attendants, had all gone. Varying 
now only in costume and accomplishment, all the 
women alike were cage-dwellers, whereas in former 



THE SCARLET LADY 295 

days the superior classes of them were spared that 
indignity. So far from evading questions, the pre- 
siding representative of Spear-hand, an elderly woman 
with a not unkindly face, seemed amused by my interest 
and answered readily. I began to think we had made 
a mistake. This decorous tea-party, removed from 
the glare and hustle of the street, bore small resem- 
blance to an orgy. But now and then wild incidents 
surged up in the low ripple of current gossip. Six 
months before a fire had broken out in Ageyamachi, 
consuming half an alley of too contiguous wooden 
dwellings and costing twenty lives. Recently a brawl 
between Russian sailors and Tokyd students had 
fluttered all the dovecots of Sami Cho, but had been 
speedily quenched by the fearless dapper police. 

A sound of thrumming from the floor above hinted 
that the next item on the programme would be 
musical. We mounted and found ourselves in pre- 
sence of two geisha, Miss Wistaria and Miss Dolly, 
who had been summoned by my cicerone while I was 
interrogating the Shinzo. The status and perform- 
ance of these geisha differ considerably from those of 
their more respectable sisters, and Europeans, by con- 
fusing the two, have no doubt helped to affix a stigma 
to the whole class. Miss Dolly was no more than a 
child, and Miss Wistaria looked about sixteen. Both 
songs and dances, without being vulgar, were decidedly 
lax ; and, as the songs were topical, I followed them 
less easily than the dance, which might have been 
named after a primitive Japanese goddess, " The 
Female who Invites." Yet I must confess that the 
indelicacy was not blatant, but redeemed by a coy 
conscientiousness as of one who, half laughing, half 
shrinking, complies with an inevitable command. 



296 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

After some forty minutes of minstrelsy (my com- 
panions joining in the songs), the entertainment con- 
cluded with a polite request to the " honourable 
stranger" to return, and, handing us their cards — 
dainty cardlets, one inch square, inscribed with tiny 
hieroglyphics — the performers returned to the tea- 
house whence they had been hired. 

At this moment Young Bamboo, Golden Harp, and 
River of Song, whom I had completely forgotten, 
reappeared on the scene. They had changed their 
scarlet robes for looser ones of white satin, and awaited 
our pleasure. I explained to River of Song, whose 
intelligent expression had influenced my choice, that if 
she would tell me her story and describe her impres- 
sions of Yoshiwara life, her duties would be at an end 
and her fee doubled. Entering readily into the role 
of Scheherazade, she began by declaring that, though 
eagerly awaiting the day of liberation, which was yet 
two years off, she was not so unhappy as many of her 
companions. At first, when the bell rang before the 
shrine at evening for a signal to enter the cage (mzse, 
" the shop," she called it), the ordeal was both long 
and painful. But time had assuaged this feeling, and 
she had made many friends. Moreover, the Spear- 
hand of Dragon Cape had taken a fancy to her and 
made her life easier. Then she recalled her childhood. 
Her real name was Miss Mushroom (Matsutake*), and 
her father had been a fisherman of Shinagawa. Ever 
since she could remember, it had been her habit to 
patter bare-footed along the beach and gather shell- 
fish at low tide. But bad times drove her parents into 
Tokyo, where an uncle had a small shop in the main 
street of Asakusa. On him they built their hopes, but 
his business failed, her mother died, and at last the 



THE SCARLET LADY 297 

father, hoping to make a fresh start by capitalising his 
daughter, sold her to the house of the Dragon Cape. 
At this point I asked if I could see the nenki-shomon, 
or certificate of sale, which would probably be in the 
possession of Spear-hand. The River of Song hesi- 
tated, not liking to ask, but I volunteered to accompany 
her, and we finished the story in the actual sanctum of 
Spear-hand, whom I had propitiated with coins and 
cigarettes. , 

The document (except in the matter of names) was 
thus worded : 

Name of Girl — Ito Matsutake. 
Age — Eighteen years. 
Dwelling-place — Asakusa, Daimachi 18. 
Father's name — Ito Nobuta. 

You, Minami Kakichi, proprietor of the House of the Dragon 
Cape, agree to take into your employ for five years the above named 
at a price of : — 

300 yen (about ^30). 

30 yen (about ^3) you retain as mizukin (allowance for dress). 

270 yen (about ^27), the balance, I have received. 

I guarantee that the girl will not cause you trouble while in your 
employ. 

She is of the Monto sect, her temple being the Higashi Hongwanji 
in Asakusa. 

Parent's name — Ito Nobuta. 
Witness's name — Kimoto Nagao. 
Landlord's name — Yamada Isoh. 
Proprietor's name — Minami Kakichi. 
Name of Kashi-zashiki — House of the Dragon Cape. 

It seemed to me that this certificate was story 
enough, with its batch of red seals denoting the triple 
sanction of father, master, and gods. Yet was it not 
better so ? Hard as her fate might be, these were 
regular sponsors of a legal profession. She was not 



298 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

living in lonely defiance of public opinion and private 
remorse. She would still be gentle, submissive, 
modest, until the lapse of time should restore her 
liberty, unless the rascaldom that would beset her 
pathway for five long years should coarsen and undo 
her natural goodness. The Japanese used to boast 
that they were born good ; that only the Chinese, and 
such barbarians, require a code of prohibitive clauses 
defining and forbidding sin. It is a charming theory, 
and many foreigners have subscribed to it. It is 
certain that if you deduct from Yoshiwara the heinous- 
ness which Western moralists impute, a tangle of pros 
and cons would confuse the Japanese conservative 
who knows anything of Western wickedness. But, as 
I wavered to the sentimental side of Oriental legality, 
seduced by the condoning circumstances of politeness 
and security, I suddenly remembered that this city of 
pleasure was founded upon a marsh, for all night long 
the frogs, like thousands of sinister voices, sustained 
their croaking chorus, as if in ironic commentary on 
the 

M riddle that one shrinks 
To challenge from the scornful sphinx." 



Ill 

Whenever Tokyo crushed a hope or destroyed an 
illusion, I generally sought and sometimes found balm 
in Kyoto. There at least historic beauty is not marred 
and violated at every turn by modern innovation. The 
vulgar reality of the Shin-Yoshiwara had effectually 
dissipated my preconception of it, romantically based 
on book and picture. But, five months after the 
Asakusa frogs had mocked at my disillusion, I was 
urged by a Japanese artist to accompany him to 
Shimabara, about five miles out of Kyoto on the 
way to Lake Biwa, where, he said, some few vestiges 
were yet to be seen of the oiraris fading supremacy. 
Accordingly, having telephoned from the city to the 
village (impossible to avoid modernity !), which is 
happily omitted from the discreet pages of Murray, we 
drove out on a cold October evening to the once 
fashionable Tsumi-ya, a tea-house which figures in 
more than one notorious novel. As we sat shivering 
on the mats of the large fan-room, dimly lit by a single 
lamp, it was hard to realise what famous revels 
had contributed to its renown. Yet the relics were 
many and convincing. On the ceiling were painted 
the eight hundred and eighty-eight fans by Tosa, each 
inscribed with the autograph of a distinguished visitor, 



joo JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

a poet or a daimyo, generally both. Hard by was the 
pine-room, whose faintly pictured canopy of serpentine 
boughs was the work of Korin. And, when the 
servants entered to lay the preliminary meal, they 
wore the same red aprons and red sleeve-cords as in 
the days when Iyeyasu was borne in his litter to the 
gardens of Shoji Jinyemon. 

It would seem that the routine of ambrosial nights 
does not greatly vary in the land of perpetual etiquette. 
Having sipped rather than supped, the dishes being 
light and fluid, we summoned the usual geisha, but 
among them, as the artist had forewarned me, was one 
of unusual distinction. O Wakatai San (her name 
was equivalent to " The Honourable Young Person ") 
had long been the torture and despair of susceptible 
visitors. Her father was a samurai, strict and proud, 
who had trained her in a school of arbitrary virtue. 
Suitors had been one and all rejected ; even Lord W., 
offering bribes of incredible amount, had gone empty 
away. She was losing her youth, having reached the 
age of twenty-three, but her regular features and 
sunny smile helped one to forget the rather raucous 
tones of her voice. She had seen enough of the 
Shimabara life to pity its victims, and sang us some 
rather sad ditties on the subject, of which I transcribe 
two. The first refers to the prisoner's longing for 
liberty. 

A Wish. 

Could I but live like 
Butterflies flitting, 
Settling together, 

Free, on the moor ! 

The other is a little difficult to render, since each 
line has a double meaning : the point turns on the 




The Taiyu waves her sake-cup. 



THE SCARLET LADY 301 

punning elasticity of mi, a word signifying seed, self, 
and body. The flower to which allusion is made, a 
yellow rose that blooms in mountainous districts, is 
always known as the wanton's flower. 

The Wanton's Flower. 

The hill-girl's body 
Is sold for silver : 
Poor, seedless hill-rose, 
A prison-flower ! 

Whatever novelists and dramatists may have written 
in glorification of the Scarlet Lady, the popular feeling, 
as voiced in vulgar songs, is pure compassion. 

It was signified that on payment of a small sum we 
might now behold a resurrected taiyu, wearing the 
robes and insignia of her order. Assent being given, 
three blows were struck on a huge gong at the gate to 
summon the siren, who had never been subjected to 
the ignominious exposure of a cage, but came in state 
to meet her suitors at the Tsumi-ya. Alas ! the state 
had been sadly curtailed ! We saw no attendant 
henchmen, no ministering children, but three rosy- 
cheeked peasant-girls rather suddenly irradiated the 
gloom of that historic chamber, bearing without dignity 
the weight of a bygone royalty. The costumes were, 
in truth, splendid enough, and the crowns of heavy 
hairpins quite impressive. On the trailing robe of the 
first was represented a cloud cleft by lightning above 
a golden dragon ; on that of the second, a rock with 
peonies ; on that of the third, a tiger chasing a butterfly. 
All three designs were lavishly embroidered with gold. 
Sweeping her cumbrous skirt aside with one hand, 
the taiyu held in the other a wide sakJ-cup, which 
she slowly waved in air, repeating an old Japanese 



302 JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS 

formula, which neither the artist nor the red-aproned 
nakauri could interpret. For nearly five hundred 
years the room of fans had seen the taiyu wave her 
sa&J-cup, had heard her use those words, but we could 
not evoke from its shadowy depths the ghost of an 
explanation. We must take the spectacle for what it 
was, the pale survival and ineffectual remnant of dying 
custom. Somehow, the awkward mummery of the 
girls and the bleak discomfort of the old tea-house 
seemed strangely appropriate. It was as though we 
were fitly rewarded for copying Dr. Faustus' impious 
trick of calling up fair phantoms from the past, not 
realising that communion is impossible between living 
and dead. ... 

The Scarlet Lady has not yet lost her hold on new 
Japan. The " unruly wills and affections of sinful 
men " are too strong for that. But she has lost her 
glamour. Poets do not sing of her, painters withhold 
their homage, though she is represented by a barrister 
in the Lower House of the Diet. For now she has 
become a thing more sacrosanct than any vestal virgin 
— a vested interest. She is exploited by numerous 
joint-stock companies, in which shares are held by quite 
important people. Their aggregate capital is enormous, 
their ability to block all reform, which might tend to 
reduce profits, correspondingly great. The law is at 
once her protector and her gaoler. If invoked to check 
cruelty, it must also enforce the observance of contracts. 
All one can hope is that, so long as custom shall recog- 
nise and government control her, at least her outlook 
may not darken from red to black. 



INDEX 



PLAYS 



Aoi no Uye, 46, 50, 57 

Bataille de Dames, 82 

L' Enfant Prodigue, 65 

The Fisher-boy of Urashima, 75 

Fukuro Yamabueshi, 46, 56 

Funa Benkei, 46, 54 

The Geisha, 61 

The Geisha and the Knight, 70 

Gompachi and Komurasaki, 282 

The Green-eyed Monster, 266 

Hamlet, 85 

Ichi-no-tani Futaba-gunki, 76 

Jiraiya, 264 

Kagamigama-Kokyo-no-nishiki, 81 

KajimaTakanori (The Loyalist), 68 

Kajincho, 265 

Kasuga no Tsubone, 86 

Kitsune-tsuki, 46, 48 

Koi no Omoni, 46, 49 

Madame Butterfly, 64 

Maki no Kata, 85 

The Merry Wives of Windsor, 188 

The Mikado, 61 



Miracle Plays, 57 

Le Monde ou Ton s'ennuie, 84 

Monte Cristo, 84 

The Moonlight Blossom, 63 

The Nabeshima Cat, 81 

Nakamitsu, 76 

Niobe, 68 

Othello, 85 

Our Boys, 80 

Pistorigoto, 117 

La Poupee, 68 

Roku Jizo, 46, 52 

Round the World in Eighty Days, 
67,84 

Shimazomasa, 116 

Shunkwan, 46 

Sweet Lavender, 80 

The Tongue- cut Sparrow, 75 

Les Trois Mousquetaires, 84 

Tsuchigumo, 46, 55 

Zaza, 64 

Zingoro, an Earnest Statue Car- 
ver, 68 



II 
PERSONS 



Adams (Will), 18 

Alcock (Sir Rutherford), 18 



Archer (William), 206 
Asada (Lieutenant), 79 



3°4 

Aston (W. G,), 14, 85, 144 



INDEX 



Belasco (David), 64 

Benkei, 54, 265 

Bernhardt (Madame Sara), 93 

Binzura, 226 

Browning (Robert), 127, 140 

Bruant (Aristide), 123 

Buddha and Buddhism, 23, 25, 35> 
42, 52, 57> 7i>78» 82, 112, 114, 
116, 139, 155, 160, 175, 184, 
190, 195, 225 

Campbell (Mrs. Patrick), 93 
Chamberlain (B. H.), 8, 12, 25, 

121, 127 

Chevalier (Albert), 123 
Chikamatsu, 58, 72 
Confucius, 80, 154, 240, 279 

Danjuro (Ichikawa), 66, 73, 82, 

93 
Diosy (Arthur), 62 

Fenollosa (Ernest), 237 
Fernald (A.), 64 
France (Anatole), 228 
Fukai (T.), 4 

Fukuchi (Mr.), 85, 97, 263 
Fukuzawa (Y.), 13 

Gautier (Theophile), 122, 237 
Gilbert (W. S.), 61 
Godaijo (Emperor), 69 
Greene (Robert), 72 
Guilbert (Mademoiselle Yvette), 
123 

Hall (Owen), 61 

Hayashi (Mr.), 27 

Hearn (Lafcadio), 7, 18, 189 

Hidari Jingoro, 68, 11 1 

Hideyoshi (Taiko), 43, 72, 86, 109, 

243 
Hiroshige, 105, 228 
Hokusai, 140, 143, 198, 228, 255 



Ibsen (Henrik), 46, 88 

Ikkiu, 42 

Inari (goddess), 48, 52, 71, 162, 276, 

288 
Inouye (Count), 270 
Ito (Marquis), 12, 29 
Iyeyasu, 43, 75, 86, 1 10, 279, 284, 300 

JlSHO, 28o 

Jizo, 52, 162, 167 

Kawakami (Otojiro), 65, 84 

Reiki (Tokugawa), 44 

Keion, 220 

Kent (Horace Robert), 33 

Kesiki, 280 

Kintaro, 56 

Kidoen, 280 

Kitsune, 46, 48, 249 

Kiyomori, 46 

Kiyotsugu, 41 

Kogyo (Mr.), 43 

Komatsu Tenno (Emperor), 277 

Konosuke Koyama, M.P., 34 

Korin, 210, 300 

Kuroda (Marquis), 66 

Kwannon (goddess), 52, 185, 257 

Loti (Pierre), 3, 48, 64, 211 

Marlowe (Christopher), 72 
Millard (Miss Evelyn), 65 
Mitford (A. B.), ii, 81 
Matsumoto Keichi, 43 
Mori (Viscount), 79 
Motokiyo, 41, 49 
Motoori, 105, 126 

Nagoya Sanza, 72 

Okuma (Count), 27, 29, 79 
O Kuni, 72 
Osada (Mr.), 84, 266 
Ota Nobunaga. 42 

Ransome (Stafford),^ 



INDEX 



3°S 



Saikaku, 280 

Schroder (F.), 32 

Scott (Clement), 88, 269 

Shakespeare, 4, 58, 73, 74, 88 

Shaw (George Bernard), 206 

Shiuran, 42 

Shizuka, 54 

Shoji Jinzemon, 285 

Shotuku Taishi, 190 

Soga, 278 

Swinburne (A. C), 122, 129 

Takao, 278 

Takeda Izumo, 73 

Tanabata (The Weaver), 173, 290 

Tennyson (Lord), 122, 129, 139 

Tora Gozen, 278 



Tosa, 299 

Toyomatsu (Umeseko) 33 

Tsuboiichi (Yuzo), 85 

Ukiyoye (Painters) 140, 284 
Umewaka (Mr.), 44 
Utamaro, 143, 284 

Verhaeren (Emile), 210, 275 

Wazumi-no-Mikoto, 223 

Yacco (Madame Sada), 65, 267 
Yano (Funic5), 156 
Yoritomo, 54, 278 
Yoshitsune, 54, 154 
Yuko Hatakeyama, 79 



III 
PLACES 



Akakura, 180 
Asama-yama, 179, 222 
Ashikaga, 238 

Blackfriars, 72 

Chester, 57 

Dango-zaka, 258 
Dan-no-ura, 55, 277 
Dogo, 200 
Doshisha, 15 

Fuji-yama, 3, 70, 141 

Gojo Bridge (Kyoto), 54, 

Haruna, 165 
Hiei-zan, 42 

Hiroshima, 195, 245, 277 
Hommonji, 164 

Ikao, 149 

In and Sea, 191 



265 



Ishinomaki, 213 
Izumo, 72, 242 

Kamakura, 54 
Karuizawa, 179 
Kikai-gashima, 46 
Kinkwa-zan, 215 
Kintaikyo (Bridge), 200 
Kiyomidzu, 257 
Kobe, 5, 12, 77, 206 
Kose, 222 
Kure, 194 

Kyoto, 35, 47 5 50> 7 2 > 93> io 4> lo6 > 
237, 279 

Liaotung (Peninsula), 80 

Matsub, 243 
Matsushima, 212 
Matsuyama, 204 
Meguro, 283 
Mi-Hashi (Nikko), 188 
Miyajima, 195 

U 



306 



INDEX 



Moscow, no, 115, 237 
Mukojima, 104, 287 

Naoetsu, 185 
Nara, 40, 168, 278 
Nogiri (Lake), 183 
Notting Hill, 66 

Omuro Gosho, 114 

Onomichi, 193 

Osaka, 26, 73, 109, 189, 245, 268 

Sendai, 211, 278 
Sengakuji, 78 
Sen-yuji, 188 
Shiba, 104. 147 
Shimabara, 299 



Shimonoseki, 44, 278 
Shinagawa, 285 
Shiogama, 278 
Sugamo, 13, 35 
Suruga-dai, 13 

Takaba, 183 

Tokyo, 67, 76, 83, 93, 168 

Tsuruga, 116 

Uji Bridge, 113 

Yokohama, 8, 12, 32, 35 
Yoshino, 105 
Yoshiwara, 70, 283, 291 
Yume no Uki-hashi, 188 

Zenkoji (Nagano), 224 



